Photo: Lizzie
Some offset programs produce a stream of revenue that provides incentives to emit more negative emissions
Some companies have engineered offset programs that are considered double dipping, in terms of getting offsetting credits and padding their own deep pockets. One Chinese company generated $500m of offset credits by installing a $5m incinerator to burn the HFCs produced by manufacturing refrigerants. The enormous profits were an incentive to build new factories or expand existing ones solely for the purpose of increasing HFC emissions so the pollutants could be destroyed, generating more offset credits.
A US oil company operating in Nigeria applied for offset credits in exchange for processing its own waste. Local officials said that practice is like a criminal demanding money to stop committing crimes. Other Western offset programs have a negative social impact when local residents are forced to leave their homes in order to build a National Park that is earmarked as a carbon offset.
Photo: Jace
Offsetting standards vary so carbon reduction claims are often misleading or exaggerated
There are no standard certification requirements, so a variety of emission measurements and reduction guidelines exist, and that creates fraud, especially in undeveloped countries. There are widespread instances of organizations and people buying worthless carbon credits from corporations that provide services that have no environmental value.
Since there is a shortage of verification methods, it’s hard to assess the true value of carbon credits for planting trees. Futhermore, sometimes these efforts are tremendously self-contradictory. For example, in some cases newly planted trees have actually acted as invaders, threatening and destroying native species. A Dutch Foundation planted pine and eucalyptus trees in an Andes Neo-tropical ecosystem and was accused of effectively devastating the region.
Although carbon offset programs tout their environmental benefits many of them have secondary side effects. Some recent hydro-electric projects are in question because of their negative secondary impact on the native environment. Some countries are not allowing these projects into the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) even though they have been approved by the World Commission of Dams and the UFCCC.
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