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Carbon Offsetting

All the time we're offered the opportunity to offset the carbon produced by various things we do, whether it's air travel or heating our homes. There's a constant bombardment of celebrities boasting about the environmental benefits of it... But is it all it's cracked up to be?

What is carbon offsetting?

The principle behind carbon offsetting is that the carbon emissions generated through an activity (such as driving or flying) are calculated and someone is then paid for an initiative that reduces carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by an equivalent amount.

Initiatives that can generate carbon offsets include energy efficiency projects (e.g. installing energy saving technologies in housing developments), renewable energy schemes (e.g. wind farms) or tree-planting schemes which can take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Often these schemes are in developing countries.

What does Friends of the Earth Scotland think of them?

Carbon offsets can have a limited role to play in increasing awareness about the personal activities that cause climate change, providing additional opportunities for personal action, and channelling funds to projects which can efficiently reduce emissions. If they are to play such a role, they must be effectively certified and accredited.

Friends of the Earth Scotland has a number of reservations about current carbon offsetting, however. These include the following:

• Individuals and organisations that are considering cutting emissions may be encouraged not to  bother – because they can offset instead.
• Offsets may lead to more reductions being made in poor developing countries than in the rich  countries that contribute most to the problem. We no longer have the luxury of living energy wasteful lifestyles in wealthy countries while using our money to reduce emissions overseas. The rich world needs to both reduce its emissions substantially and rapidly and help developing countries develop clean low carbon technologies.
• Offsetting infers a way to carry on with the polluting activity and may lead to damaging delays.
• The longer we delay action on actually cutting emissions, the worse the problem gets and the harder it will be to cut them later on (so for example, in Scotland, if we offset emissions from car journeys but continue to build new roads, it will be harder to cut emissions later on when theroads have been built).
• The environmental credentials of many of the credits and the contribution of the projects to sustainable development are often questionable. Money for an offset scheme should only be funnelled to projects that would not have happened unless the offset money was provided.
• There are uncertainties over carbon accounting and a lack of reliable verification of the schemes, which mean that the reported emissions reductions may be exaggerated.
• Projects can be imposed on developing country communities with no consultation, and can leadto social problems, such as the exclusion of indigenous communities from forest lands.
• Tree-planting schemes are particularly problematic and should be ruled out of any offset scheme. Large scale plantations have decreased biodiversity, displaced people and caused social disruption. Doubts have recently been cast on the contribution of trees outside the tropics inreducing CO2 levels and the science is uncertain.

Friends of the Earth Scotland is an environmental charity based in Scotland
5 Rose Street, Edinburgh EH2 2PR. Tel: 0131 243 2700. Registered charity number SC003442