PLEA Network

3 November 2022, The Conversation: Australia relies on controversial offsets to meet climate change targets. We might not get away with it in Egypt. It’s small wonder a major fossil fuel producer like Australia has relied so heavily on carbon offsets. Plant new forests – or say you will avoid clearing old ones – and you can keep approving new gas and coal developments. This year, whistleblower Professor Andrew McIntosh claimed up to 80% of these offsets weren’t real. They didn’t actually offset emissions. In Australia, renewables are the only real source of emission reduction. The rest of the economy is set to slowly increase emissions. But what matters is actually reducing how many tonnes of heat-trapping greenhouse gases go up into the sky and add to the 2.5 trillion tonnes of CO2 humans have already emitted – of which more than a trillion tonnes remain in the atmosphere. Last year, carbon dioxide and methane levels hit new highs. Offsets measure how much carbon is soaked up by, say, a reforestation project. As the saplings grow, they store carbon. Offsets are a way to theoretically package up this stored carbon – or emissions claimed to have been avoided by not deforesting an area of land – and sell it to companies who would like to keep pumping out emissions equal to the amount stored in new forests. You can quickly see the problem. Who’s checking to see if these forests were planted – or if they were going to be planted anyway? Are emission reductions or storage real – and additional to what would otherwise have happened? Read more here