A carbon offset is a credit that can be purchased to reduce a person’s or organization’s carbon impact. When the amount of carbon offset credits received equals the carbon footprint of an individual or business, that person or entity is considered carbon-neutral. Carbon offset revenue is frequently — but not always — invested in ecologically favourable projects, such as investments in green computer technologies.
Carbon offsetting, in its broadest sense, is any reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to compensate for emissions that occur elsewhere. Carbon offset credits demonstrate that a company or individual has reduced their emissions. Both the credit and the act of carbon offsetting are referred to as carbon offsets.
A carbon offset credit signifies a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of one metric tonne. A carbon offsetting app aims to minimise a person’s carbon impact entirely or partially.
What Exactly Is A Carbon Footprint?
A person’s or organization’s carbon footprint is the total quantity of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases produced by their actions. Both direct and indirect emissions are included. A direct emission comes from a source owned by the reporting entity. Carbon dioxide created by fossil fuel combustion within a company-owned delivery vehicle is an example. Indirect emissions are generated by the reporting entity’s actions but come from sources it does not own.
How Does Carbon Offsetting Work?
“Carbon offsetting is achievable since climate change is a non-localized concern,” according to the Stockholm Environment Institute’s Carbon Offset Research and Education (CORE) initiative. “Reducing greenhouse gases wherever benefits overall climate protection,” according to the report. This means that a flight in Europe, for example, can be offset by a completely different scheme in the Americas. Carbon offset credits, according to the CORE website, are “a transportable instrument approved by governments or independent certifying bodies to reflect an emission reduction of one metric tonne of CO2″ or an equivalent amount of other greenhouse gases.”
Are There Any Environmental Impacts Of Carbon Offsetting?
It’s difficult to figure out how successful the carbon offsetting calculator is. One issue, as Wired pointed out, is that scientists don’t know how much carbon is currently trapped in the world’s trees. Although satellites can record forest growth and depletion, the site claims that “they don’t reveal whether a tree in a forest is ten metres tall or 100 metres tall, which is an important piece of climate information” for evaluating the effectiveness of carbon capture.
Furthermore, if offsetting projects contribute additional carbon emissions to the atmosphere – for example, through travel or resource transportation – the disadvantages may begin to outweigh the benefits.
Considering that ten hours of flight time can add a metric tonne of carbon to the environment, scientists generally believe that lowering carbon emissions in the first place is preferable to retrospectively offsetting them, according to National Geographic.
THE CLOSING WORDS
Certain high-carbon-emitting companies seek to continue doing business as usual by using a carbon offset calculator. We can’t deny the facts: we won’t be able to grow our way out of the climate crisis.
If we’re serious about combating climate change, there’s just one solution: these businesses and sectors must radically alter their business models to prioritise people and the environment over profit.
