Dismissed as just ‘nature-based seduction,’ carbon offsetting seen as illusive cure to climate woes

Laymanizing carbon offsetting, British writer and activist George Monbiot thought of likening the supposed climate solution to the medieval religious practice of buying indulgences for the absolution of sins.

“Rejoice! We have a way out. Our guilty consciences appeased, we can continue to fill up our SUVs and fly round the world without the least concern about our impact on the planet. How has this magic been arranged? By something called ‘carbon offsets.’ You buy yourself a clean conscience by paying someone else to undo the harm you are causing,” said Monbiot in a column he wrote for The Guardian in 2006.

Fourteen years since Monbiot’s acerbic critique of carbon offsetting, which he described as “pernicious” and a “destructive nonsense,” the mechanism assumed to mitigate the impacts of climate change has widened its reach among governments, companies, and individuals in wealthy countries, which emit the most carbon dioxide that causes the planet to heat up, leading to droughts, wildfires, floods, food shortages, and deadlier storms.

In a recent report, the Financial Times (FT) said the carbon offset market had progressed amid the Covid-19 crisis. It noted that the U.S. had 23 percent of the total carbon offset projects ranging from tree-planting to renewable energy and waste disposal schemes.

FT also showed in its report that the developing countries of India, China, Turkey, Brazil, Rwanda, and Kenya were the top hosts of voluntary offset projects or those that are funded by private investors, businesses, and governments that purchase carbon offsets to compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions caused by their activities and operations.

Despite the growth in the carbon offset market, many remain unconvinced by its capability to help heal the planet.  

Among them is the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), a research and advocacy organization working towards food sovereignty and agroecology and a member of the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition.

In an October 2020 briefing paper, which it co-published with the non-profit international research and advocacy organization Third World Network (TWN), ACB argued that carbon offsets “do not reduce the overall concentration of carbon dioxides in the atmosphere” but “at best” only “result in no net emissions.”

“We must learn to separate genuine nature-based solutions from nature-based seductions, such as carbon offsets," ACB and TWN noted in the paper, which was researched and written by Doreen Stabinsky, professor of global environmental politics at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, USA.

"There is no free lunch here. Tackling climate change requires both ending the burning of fossil fuels and doing all we can to take carbon that has accumulated from the previous century of fossil emissions out of the atmosphere."

Dismissing carbon markets and offsets as nothing but “myths,” Stabinsky said these were only “useful for those who want to continue with business as usual,” especially fossil fuel players, who “explicitly assert that these ‘solutions’ will offset their continued sale of fossil fuels.”

“So are nature-based offsetting projects that can both hide emissions and greenwash the image of those doing the emitting, such as high-profile tree-planting campaigns. As the need for greenwashing projects increases, NbS (nature-based solutions) in the global South are prioritized for their photogenic and charismatic ‘nature,’” she added.

Moreover, Stabinksy said the practice of seeking climate solutions to one’s own carbon emissions in someone else’s land and forests, which is known as “carbon colonialism,” must provoke one to ask the following questions:

• Solutions for what?

• Whose problems are being solved?

• Who is profiting from the ‘solution’?

• Who put the carbon into the atmosphere in the first place and who should be responsible for removing it?

And it's highly likely that after finding the answers to these queries, one will be able to deduce that "the emperor has no clothes," according to Stabinksy. 

"Offsets do not reduce emissions and are not a climate solution. The fossil fuel industry is greenwashing its image at the same time that its practices continue to increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," she said. 

READ THE WHOLE REPORT BY CLICKING THE LINK BELOW.

https://www.acbio.org.za/sites/default/files/documents/202009/twn-briefing-paper.pdf