3 ms·

Even if carbon credits do absolutely nothing else, at least they impose a cost on carbon release.

• burkaman 3y ago
  Carbon credits are so incredibly cheap, and in most cases completely voluntary, that I genuinely don't believe they have impacted anyone's behavior. Companies and individuals that buy credits either were already planning on reducing their emissions (so in the best case the credits are useless), or don't want to reduce emissions and are using the credits for PR purposes to delay any actual reduction and call themselves "net zero". Even when they're legally mandated, most credits are completely unverifiable (what ratings agency will be able to certify that a tree you sponsored will last 100 years). It is actively harmful to allow someone to say that since they paid $10 to plant a tree that may or may not absorb a ton of carbon over the next century, that offsets the literal ton of carbon that they just emitted yesterday (and made a lot more than $10 off of). Just tax the carbon and put the proceeds towards ecological restoration, that accomplishes the same thing without letting anyone falsely claim they have offset their emissions, and allows the government to set the price to something meaningful.