Primers for those who want to better understand carbon offsets.
CRITERIA TO BE MET BY ANY CARBON PROJECT
A big thing with carbon markets are
- Permanence
- Substitution
- Additionality
- No double counting
- Validation and verification
Mitigation hierarchy
- Avoid, minimise, restore and THEN offset
MUST BE PAIRED WITH
- The offsetting of unavoidable emissions (Mark Carney — Offsets should only be reserved for residual emissions)
- Aggressive emissions reductions
- In my opinion, they also must be paired with an equitable distribution of benefits: Controlling credit margins, and mandating that a minimum proportion of the money generated from credit sales must be spent on the field/into further restoration/held by a land trust or local community structure. These are natural gains and the revenues should be naturalised in turn.
- TED countdown guide https://time.com/6197651/carbon-credits-fight-climate-change/
- 3 types of credit proposed: reduction, protection, and removal. The protection and reduction categories should not be called credits as many people are using them now as part of a claim to be “net zero”—even though they don’t neutralize emissions.
- It’s widely accepted that offsets shouldn’t represent more than 5% of any company’s mitigation strategy