Common Ground: Carbon Offsetting

June 2007 | Green Scene

Carbon Offsetting

A Guilt-free Pass?

By Jennifer Roche

The next time you book an airline ticket you may find yourself facing an environmental dilemma: Should you pay for a “pass” to offset the carbon emissions your plane releases into the atmosphere?

Carbon-offsetting programs, including brand names like TerraPass, PrairieTree Project.com, Carbonfund.org and e-BlueHorizons, have flourished recently as consumers concerned about global warming try to repair their personal damage to the earth’s atmosphere.

The programs work by calculating the “carbon footprint” associated with certain types of human activity, such as air and car travel. Then, when consumers purchase their credits, they promise to offset the corresponding carbon emissions released by those activities.

For instance, the TerraPass program sells a “fly green” pass through travel website Expedia.com. Prices range from $5.99, for offsetting the carbon emissions for one passenger on “short-haul” flights, to $29.99 for international trips. TerraPass offsets these emissions by investing in renewable energy sources, promoting industrial efficiencies, and by purchasing and retiring emissions credits from the Chicago Climate Exchange. Other offset programs invest in reforestation projects as well.

But, do they really work?

“It remains to be seen how effective they’re going to be,” reports Liz Martin-Perera, a Climate Policy Specialist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“Our first answer would be to reduce your energy consumption and use of fossil fuels as much as you can. That’s going to save you money and do the best for the planet. And, it’s in your control right up front.”

After you’ve reduced your carbon footprint, Martin-Perera says you can offset your remaining “pieces of emissions” through these programs. “That’s the philosophy, so it’s not a guilty conscience thing, like buying a Hummer and then buying the offsets.”

Gordon Hard, senior editor at Consumer Reports, researched carbon-offset programs and concludes in the January issue that buying credits is “one way to cut CO2 emissions.”

“At this point, because it’s so early in the game, it’s sort of a feel good thing, but it is real,” he states. Hard is especially enthusiastic about programs that use cap-and-trade financial instruments, which he says have a proven record of success in reducing emissions.

Hard and Martin-Perera both note the significance of several emerging offset verification programs, such as Green-e from the Center for Resource Solutions. They identify these “gold-standard” certifications as a meaningful step toward ensuring that the offsets sold by consumer programs are correctly executed, not duplicated and yield the offsetting results that they promise.

Hard emphasizes that carbon-offset programs are not going to change the world overnight. He believes consumers still contribute a very small amount of money to what is a very large problem.

“It’s kind of like going to a state forest,” he asserts. “You pack out what you pack in. You’re not necessarily cleaning up the entire forest, but you’re not making it worse either. And, perhaps you pick up someone else’s garbage while you’re there, too. That’s the theme, and we think it’s a pretty reasonable idea.”

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