Zero
Are Carbon Offsets the Labradoodle of Climate Solutions?
“It’s too easy to do it wrong,” says Mark Trexler, who helped create the first carbon offset project, on the latest episode of Zero.
Carbon offsets are only effective if the projects they support wouldn’t have happened otherwise. That threshold is increasingly inapplicable when it comes to wind and solar projects, for example.
Photographer: Liesa Johannssen-Koppitz/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
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Already booming, the $2 billion carbon offset industry is poised to keep growing. The US is even incorporating offsets into efforts to fulfill international climate pledges. There’s just one problem: In the 30 years since carbon offsets were created, they haven’t been proven to work.