TWO weeks ago, a United Nations climate specialist called out the idea of using carbon offsets (airline passengers paying for trees to be planted, for example) as a “get-out-of-jail-free card”.
“The era of carbon offsets is drawing to a close,” wrote Niklas Hagelberg.
“Buying carbon credits in exchange for a clean conscience while you carry on flying, buying diesel cars and powering your home with fossil fuels is no longer acceptable or widely accepted.”
Management at UN Environment, where Hagelberg is employed, may not have been amused. Since 2008, the Nairobi-based programme has aimed for climate neutrality, off-setting its carbon emissions by buying carbon credits from a system administered by UN Climate Change.
In a revised article the next day, carbon offsetting went from “no longer acceptable” to an idea “being challenged by people concerned about climate change”.
Indeed, the carbon-offset system, first set up in the mid-1990s, has faced increasing scrutiny in recent years.
Last year, UN Climate Change released a video that seemed to suggest a carbon-heavy lifestyle was okay as long as emissions were offset.
A strong backlash led to the video’s removal. And at a global climate summit last December, UN negotiators couldn’t reach consensus on whether and how to continue the offset schemes.
Since the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, which committed nearly all countries to climate action, intense discussions have taken place on how exactly to walk the talk and realise national ambitions.
As underlined by the UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, drastic reduction of emissions is a must to keep a rise in global average temperatures below 1.5 Celsius.
As we transition from fossil fuels to cleaner, greener energy-producing technologies, carbon offsetting sounds great, but does it make any real difference to the planet?
Does the planting of trees, which pull carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air when they grow, compensate for CO2 emitted from a car, aircraft, home or factory?
It sounds reasonable. But critics point out that offsetting systems help those most responsible for climate change avoid the drastic climate action truly required and create the illusion that high-carbon activities can continue — that others, notably poorer, developing countries, can be used to clean up the pollution. In a recent article, UK writer Gilles Dufrasne cited three factors that have undermined the success of the UN’s main carbon offsetting scheme — the so-called ‘Clean’ Development Mechanism (CDM).
Firstly, offsetting is at best a zero-sum game. Some countries will increase emissions while others decrease them (and sell them as offsets). “It therefore has no role to play in a world where all countries must rapidly decarbonise. All sectors should reduce their emissions, and investing in domestic climate action is a priority.”
Secondly, some zealous carbon-offset project developers (e.g. those behind the Barro Blanco hydropower dam project in Panama) “have infringed human rights and implemented projects which disrupted both the environment and the livelihoods of entire communities”.
Thirdly, only a small fraction or 2.0 per cent of CDM projects are “highly likely” to have environmental integrity, reducing emissions beyond what would have happened in the absence of the project.
In Europe alone, the use of junk CDM credits facilitated an increase in CO2 emissions of about 750 million tonnes. “Clean” projects funded through this scheme include claimed efficiency improvements of coal power plants, the most polluting energy source of all.
“No accounting or engineering tricks can fool the atmosphere,” Dufrasne observed, “and when such false solutions harm people and the environment, we end up being the losers and victims of our own short-sightedness.”
Despite the controversies and claims of ‘carbon colonisation’, carbon-offset projects continue worldwide, including in Malaysia.
Six years ago, Sabah’s state legislative assembly approved a move paving the way for it to collect revenue for carbon sequestration and storage by maintaining its forests.
Two years ago, the Kelantan government was reported to have entered into a carbon offsetting deal with a carbon trading company involving 25 per cent of its forested land.
As noted earlier, carbon offsetting has long been used in the airline industry, which is responsible for 1/50th of humanity’s CO2 emissions.
Only last week, Malaysia Airlines was reportedly exploring ways for customers to take part
in a global carbon-offset programme.
However, it is prudent for us to ponder that these and other carbon-offset programmes are both ineffective in addressing emissions and a distraction from the need for real actions to reduce CO2 emissions needed to halt global warming.
Furthermore, given the ongoing plague of irregularities and flaws in the carbon trading markets, these schemes simply and sadly don’t measure up to expectations in reducing CO2 emissions.
While we must use every available means to reduce atmospheric CO2, including massive reforestation, big CO2 emitters should not hide from the responsibility to make serious cuts under the fig leaf of carbon offsets.
The writer is a former director of the United Nations University’s Institute of Advanced Studies in Tokyo