Carbon Offset

Carbon offsets are generated by projects that reduce or remove greenhouse gas emissions, such as protecting forests, planting trees, capturing methane from landfills, providing clean cookstoves or funding renewable energy. Each verified tonne becomes a credit that can be sold.

For example, an airline might offer passengers the option of buying offsets to compensate for the emissions from their flight, funding a forest protection project.

Offsets can be traded in voluntary carbon markets, where companies buy them to meet their own climate goals, and some compliance markets, where they can be used to meet regulatory obligations.

Carbon offsets are controversial. Critics have found that many projects deliver less benefit than claimed, because the emissions reductions would have happened anyway, are temporary, such as forests that later burn, or are overestimated. Investigations into some forestry credits raised serious doubts about their value. Bodies such as the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market have developed standards to improve quality. Most climate frameworks say companies should cut their own emissions first and use offsets only for what cannot be reduced.