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My just as semi-informed opinion is just the opposite. All the evidence I have seen suggest that carbon credits amount to little more than greenwashing. There

My just as semi-informed opinion is just the opposite. All the evidence I have seen suggest that carbon credits amount to little more than greenwashing. There was a discussion just a couple of weeks ago here on HN about a project which gave more efficient cooking stoves and sold the estimated savings in terms of carbon as credits. Only problem was that it massively underestimated the actual carbon saved. A couple of years ago the Guardian did some investigating where forests which was under no threat of deforestation being sold as carbon credits as if they had saved the entire forest from deforestation. Probably in part confirmation bias, but also I don't think that a fix to a market that has externalities is to ductape it with a new market that has new externalities. That just provides more loopholes for evasion. Estimating carbon emissions avoided by a project is a messy and subjective process in the best of cases. Even more so when large amounts of capital is at risk. Currently it looks like companies get the PR benefits of being "net emissions neutral" while the carbon credits they purchased to become so will be shown to be little more than fraud a couple of years later.

rcxdude 3y ago
For sure not all carbon credits are created equal, and a lot (especially the cheaper ones) are bunk. For any project which claims to be carbon neutral through purchasing credits, you need to look at what those credits are actually doing and assess whether it is actually removing carbon from the atmosphere or not. Basically don't throw the baby out with the bathwater: most carbon credits are bunk, but don't assume that any given project is bunk just because they are selling carbon credits.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  Except that this makes the entire concept bunk, because what the company cares about is the ability to claim carbon neutrality in their PR, which they'll do by choosing the credits that are the cheapest, which will be the ones that are a fraud. The actual way to fix this is to price carbon. You don't get money for not burning down a forest, you pay money if you burn down a forest, or burn coal. Then you refund all of that money to the public so it isn't a net tax, it's just an incentive to not emit carbon, because only the people who emit carbon pay the tax but everybody gets the refund.
  - rcxdude 3y ago
    again, that's a reason to distrust if someone says they are neutral because of carbon credits, it's not a reason to distrust any given capture scheme because they are selling credits.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      But who is going to buy expensive credits that actually do something instead of cheap credits that don't? At that point you're just making a donation and the concept of "credits" no longer has any relation to what is happening.

rcxdude 3y ago

For sure not all carbon credits are created equal, and a lot (especially the cheaper ones) are bunk. For any project which claims to be carbon neutral through purchasing credits, you need to look at what those credits are actually doing and assess whether it is actually removing carbon from the atmosphere or not. Basically don't throw the baby out with the bathwater: most carbon credits are bunk, but don't assume that any given project is bunk just because they are selling carbon credits.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
Except that this makes the entire concept bunk, because what the company cares about is the ability to claim carbon neutrality in their PR, which they'll do by choosing the credits that are the cheapest, which will be the ones that are a fraud. The actual way to fix this is to price carbon. You don't get money for not burning down a forest, you pay money if you burn down a forest, or burn coal. Then you refund all of that money to the public so it isn't a net tax, it's just an incentive to not emit carbon, because only the people who emit carbon pay the tax but everybody gets the refund.
- rcxdude 3y ago
  again, that's a reason to distrust if someone says they are neutral because of carbon credits, it's not a reason to distrust any given capture scheme because they are selling credits.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    But who is going to buy expensive credits that actually do something instead of cheap credits that don't? At that point you're just making a donation and the concept of "credits" no longer has any relation to what is happening.