Seemingly inspired by my post, NY Times has an article today about how the FTC is asking about carbon offsets, and whether marketing claims about them are true. The article states that $54MM was spent last year on carbon offsets, including some offered by companies to bolster their green image. Many of the offsets that are sold are actually pretty lame, based on some of the criteria I noted in the aforementioned post. For instance, some of them count carbon offset by planting trees. Tree-based carbon offsets are dubious because:
- It’s unclear whether planting trees is actually beneficial in slowing global warming, or sequestering carbon and…
- Trees grow slowly, so even if it were effective, the carbon you think you offset won’t be offset for 50 years. So that will be good when we’re all underwater.
Also, there were lots of offsets based on RECS, and projects where additionality is questionable. Definitely worth a read, but also really illustrates why offsets can’t be the only answer - because alot of times they don’t do anything but excuse bad behavior.
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