Companies are buying up cheap carbon offsets − data suggest it may be more about greenwashing than helping the climate

theconversation.com Companies are buying up cheap carbon offsets − data suggest it may be more about greenwashing than helping the climate

A deep dive into 866 public companies and 1,413 carbon projects reveals some twists in who relies on cheap offsets and who chooses to cut their own emissions instead.

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jeffw @lemmy.world

4mo ago

Companies are buying up cheap carbon offsets − data suggest it may be more about greenwashing than helping the climate

theconversation.com /companies-are-buying-up-cheap-carbon-offsets-data-suggest-it-may-be-more-about-greenwashing-than-helping-the-climate-238973

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11 comments

Well duh. That's the whole point of carbon credits at this point.

Of COURSE it is.
BTW. Who gets this carbon offset money anyway, and what do they do with it?
- If they actually worked, it would be payment to somebody who has taken an action to prevent emissions they otherwise would not have prevented. In practice, it's 90% middlemen who claim to have paid somebody to take such an action, but no such action actually occurred, or a completely ineffective action occurred.

Oh no, maybe the EU had a point making this kind of bullshit illegal?

That’s not possible 😅🙈

It “may” be? What kind of cockamamie reporting is this

No shit. Companies can simply say they are offseting opposed to actually doing anything. It like asking a Capitan Planet villain to be honest.

To the surprise of absolutely nobody.

If I remember correctly, this was a plot point in Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future. There are cheaper offsets that are there for the taking, but every company must meet a certain quota, so if you buy the cheap ones, great, but if you hold out and are left with expensive ones that you can't afford, you are fined, and the money is put into the offsets anyway.
I could be totally misremembering it. Honestly, I didn't enjoy the book that much.

It's even worse. The places that sell carbon offsets are often poorer parts of the world. The selling is essentially a privatization of carbon sinks. As is tradition, these privatizations are very under-priced. Worse still, as they're selling carbon sinks, they will not have those carbon sinks for themselves in the future if they choose to "develop" and emit more GHGs... they'll have to buy carbon credits from some other fools and the prices are not likely to be lower.
It's all very silly.

You mean the thing that we keep getting reminded every single year is a scam, was always a scam, and never had any intentions other than to delay anyone pushing actual regulations with a pinky promise to do better "eventually".....
That maybe the companies are.... Lying to us?
Do you really think a company, the pinnacle of honest capitalism, would ever lie for short term profits?
Perish the thought!

11 comments