Greenpeace Says:

No, it doesn’t. At its core, the “do something good to do something bad” concept is ridiculous. Despite this, big polluters have aggressively lobbied governments to use offsets as a “get of out jail free” card, outsourcing pollution cuts and green jobs to other parts of the world. Used on the massive scale favored by polluters, we could see dangerous climate pollution actually increase in developed countries like the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom for years to come. In some limited circumstances, offsets can make sense, especially if they are high quality additions to required pollution cuts. If used at all, they should be an extra measure – “icing on the cake,” not the main dish!

Greenpeace Says:

No, they’re not. There are major problems that plague offset projects that often erase much of their climate benefits. That means the polluting activity that was supposed to be excused by the offset activity isn’t really “offset” at all…and pollution actually increases. A recent study found that up to two-thirds of projects under the Clean Development Mechanism – the largest international offset program in the world – “do not represent actual emissions cuts." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/26/climatechange.greenpolitics). Polluters can try to fool us, but they can’t fool the climate! And after their tricks are done, the dangerous effects of climate change will be more costly than if we simply had invested in green jobs and clean technologies to begin with.

Greenpeace Says:

Actually, forest offsets are among the lowest-quality, least reliable offsets in the world. This is particularly true with offsets that aim to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD). Here are some of the major challenges:

• “Leakage” — Deforestation can often simply move to a different part of a region or even across borders, meaning no real pollution was cut.

• “Permanence” — Forests can burn, be illegally logged, and change over time in a variety of other ways, meaning they may not keep the same carbon value in the long-term.

• “Additionality” — Can we be sure over time that a forest was actually going to be destroyed? If politics or the underlying drivers of deforestation change, which they often do in developing countries, this can be very difficult to prove. If offset credits are generated from forests that would have stayed standing anyway, those offsets are simply justifying a new polluting activity elsewhere in the world without benefits for the climate.

• “Measurement and Verification” — It is much more difficult to accurately measure the carbon in trees, plants, and soils of forests than measure the climate pollution from industrial sources like a tailpipe or smokestack. Substituting forest offsets for pollution from a power plant is like mixing apples and oranges... Or maybe more like pineapples and watermelons!

Plus, in a rush to create huge amounts of cheap REDD offsets so polluters can keep polluting, the rights of people who live in and depend on tropical forests (indigenous peoples and local communities) may be trampled on. Likewise, the precious diversity of life within those forests may be overlooked when people start looking at living forest ecosystems as a collection of “carbon sticks.”

Greenpeace Says:

We absolutely need to protect forests to protect our climate. Deforestation is responsible for more greenhouse gas pollution than all the world’s cars, trucks, planes, and boats combined. But, instead of offsets, countries like the United States should set aside money from the auctioning of pollution permits in domestic cap and trade programs to provide predictable, long-term funding for forest protection. In addition, the U.S. should provide immediate “bridge” funds to begin protecting forests while national and international climate agreements are developed. You can read more about the Greenpeace Forests for Climate proposal here.

Greenpeace Says:

Absolutely. Low quality carbon offsets could generate huge amounts of “sub-prime” carbon credits that could undermine the carbon trading markets. Some of the same Wall Street companies that were involved in the recent financial melt-down are now claiming they should be trusted to securitize, insure, and manage the trading of offsets in a new trading scheme.

Greenpeace Says:

First, science clearly shows us that to prevent the worse effects of global warming, we need pollution cuts in both developed and developing countries. It’s not an either/or proposition.

Second, the whole point of a cap and trade system is to create a financial incentive for polluters to invest in green jobs and clean technologies. But, offsets artificially drive the cost of polluting down, making green investments less attractive. A recent US Congressional Budget Office report (http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/104xx/doc10497/08-03-Offsets.pdf) highlights the fact that if offsets are overused and of low quality, they could threaten the integrity of a cap and trade system.

Third, without a serious commitment from industrialized countries to reduce pollution domestically, developing countries will continue to have an excuse not to act, threatening to doom United Nations climate negotiations scheduled to conclude this December in Copenhagen.

Greenpeace Says:

Leaders of developed countries like the United States must commit to science-based pollution cuts to keep global warming as far below the dangerous 2 degrees Celsius tipping point as possible. We call on world leaders to use every tool at their disposal to create climate policy with scientific integrity, and to take that policy to the United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen this December to help solve the climate crisis.

Specifically, leaders of developed nations such as the US, the European Union, Canada, Australia, and others must commit to:

• Keeping global temperature increases as far below 2 degrees as possible;
• Achieving real domestic pollution reductions between 25% to 40% below 1990 levels by the year 2020;
• Avoiding the use of offsets that undermine real emission reductions;
• Providing the funding necessary to stop emissions from deforestation, as well as helping developing countries adapt to unavoidable climate impacts and leapfrog the dirty energy sources with clean development to avoid exacerbating global warming.

Greenpeace Says:

We’re glad you asked. Go to www.greenpeace.org to learn more and take action.