Carbon offsetting is the reduction of your own balance of emissions by gaining credit for certified emission reduction or removal carried out by another actor.
It's not for everyone. Objections exist, both on grounds of ethics (is it right?) and practice (does it work?). But offsetting is widespread and set to grow as countries, cities and businesses all strive to set and meet #netzero targets...
Done well, offset projects can make a difference. But the types of offset projects available will need to change over time in order to help reach a genuine net zero society.
We set out four principles:
Principle 1: Prioritise reducing your own emissions first, before offsetting. Ensure the integrity of any offsets you do use and transparency in your approach. There are excellent guides to these aspects of best practice already, such as offsetguide.org.
Principle 2: over time, shift offsetting towards carbon removal, away from emission reduction. Genuine #netzero means that any residual emissions need to be balanced out by removals.
Principle 3: shift offsetting towards long-lived storage. Tree planting stores carbon for a while and has many other benefits, but is not a long-term solution for balancing fossil carbon emissions. Long-lived storage means carbon carefully locked away in geology or minerals.
Principle 4: support development of a market for these offsets. Getting from here to there requires early adopters to provide long-term agreements, form alliances, restore ecosystems on their own merits, and help set standards...
... Some interesting moves along these lines have come from @stripe and @Microsoft.
We welcome feedback on these ideas, particularly from people involved in providing, buying from, or regulating offset schemes.
And if you are looking for some guidance on #netzero-aligned strategy more generally, take a look at the principles here (for which our new offsetting principles are very much a companion):
UK government today unveils some new detail on plans to support greenhouse gas removal:
A good step forward for supporting CCS-based removal methods. Still some details to iron out... (1/6)gov.uk/government/pub…
Key points:
* the plans follow the "contracts for difference" model which has worked well for scaling renewable power in the UK
* 15 yr contracts
* an approach to defining cost elements eligible for inclusion...
(2/6)
* a review published of standards and methodologies:
Will be worth a read, but still work to do on deciding how removals will actually be measured...
So, what were the developments in carbon removal at #COP27?
A thread picking out some points across equity, innovation, reporting & accounting, and the texts...🧵
Equity:
On the one hand, carbon capture & storage (CCS) was in discussions, pushed mainly by fossil fuel interests. CCS on fossil fuel isn't carbon removal, but the same infrastructure applies. Inherited skepticism is therefore a real issue for removals.
Lots of countries have been pledging to go #NetZero in the longer term. This year's report has a chapter zooming in on these #NetZero targets. Here are some key messages...
1. If we want to limit climate change to 2°C, 1.5°C, or any other level for that matter, we need global #NetZero.
Meeting the 1.5°C limit implies getting there for CO2 around 2050.
A thread on one of the new bits in the #NetZeroStrategy: greenhouse gas removals (GGR)...
There are many ways to do removal. @GOVUK splits them between biology (e.g. trees and soils, which it puts in the “Natural Resources” part of its strategy) and engineering.
Here I’ll focus on the engineered ones, but the biological ones are worth a thread, too 🌲🌳🟫
The strategy lists these specific engineered removal approaches as deployable: BECCS, DACCS, wood in construction, enhanced weathering and biochar.
Incentives are one of *the* key things missing to scale GHG removal successfully - and this is vital for achieving #NetZero (alongside cutting emissions, obvs).