Welcome to this weeks edition of The Weekly Climate 🎉 References: [1] and [2]. Is there an #offsetgate underway? Last week I referred to an article by Bloomberg which pointed out that one of the largest nature conservancies in the US were cheating with its offsets. This week another company is caught by Bloomberg selling worthless offsets. The key thing about offsets is that in order for them to work the company selling them must prove that had it not been for them then the trees wouldn’t have been planted or protected. This is the problem for both of these cases. In the case from this week a farmer had planted trees on a piece of land and then Real Trees paid him offset money for those trees. But that is not how offsets work. Seeing as these trees were there regardless of the offset being there or not. It’s sad to see that companies are using the climate crisis to cheat in this way. And I hope that some of these stories will reach the attention of politicians such that we can get this malpractice stopped.
[Dec 14-20’20] Offsetgate
[Dec 14-20’20] Offsetgate
[Dec 14-20’20] Offsetgate
Welcome to this weeks edition of The Weekly Climate 🎉 References: [1] and [2]. Is there an #offsetgate underway? Last week I referred to an article by Bloomberg which pointed out that one of the largest nature conservancies in the US were cheating with its offsets. This week another company is caught by Bloomberg selling worthless offsets. The key thing about offsets is that in order for them to work the company selling them must prove that had it not been for them then the trees wouldn’t have been planted or protected. This is the problem for both of these cases. In the case from this week a farmer had planted trees on a piece of land and then Real Trees paid him offset money for those trees. But that is not how offsets work. Seeing as these trees were there regardless of the offset being there or not. It’s sad to see that companies are using the climate crisis to cheat in this way. And I hope that some of these stories will reach the attention of politicians such that we can get this malpractice stopped.