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by DennisP
2055 days ago
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You're right, but it's a lot harder to account for emission reduction, and offsets based on those are often illusory. For example, you might award carbon offsets for replacing a coal plant with solar, when that would have happened anyway just because the economics worked out better. If you're actually removing carbon from the atmosphere, that's not an issue. As a matter of government policy, we definitely need to focus on reducing emissions, and a simple way to do that is with a carbon fee. But for voluntary contributions right now, it's not so clearcut. |
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It depends on which organisation verifies your offset, but the big three (Gold Standard, Verra VCS, and United Nations), all require _additionality_. That is where you have to prove that the offset financing is making the project happen, rather than market forces.
It’s not a flawless process, but in many cases offsetting is helping to accelerate the transition away from carbon intensive emitters.