To quote from a 2020 Vox article:

Amazon. JetBlue. Delta Airlines. Elton John. Dave Matthews Band. Justin Trudeau. Austin, Texas. Norway. Nestlé. The Tokyo 2020 Olympics. NASCAR.

This odd mélange of companies, celebrities, cities, countries, and organizations have all made commitments to curb their contributions to climate change, if not eliminate them entirely. And they have one tactic in common: buying carbon offsets.

The idea behind offsets is simple: instead of halting your own carbon emissions, you pay someone else to reduce theirs. It’s attractive because the net reduction in CO2 is the same, but the cost can be much lower, meaning we can achieve faster reductions and/or minimize the impact on the economy. For instance, today there is no practical way for an airline to stop burning jet fuel, but JetBlue has been offsetting their emissions by helping to fund programs such as solar and wind farms, forest protection, and landfill gas capture1.

It’s a controversial topic. Some claimed “offsets” are fairly sketchy. It’s been argued that all offsets are a smoke screen that allows polluters to keep on polluting. Personally, until I sat down to write this piece, I felt that offsets were useful when evaluated rigorously. But it took me three or four tries to write a complete draft. Each time, I would get halfway through, only to realize that my concept of when offsets make sense was flawed. It’s just too difficult to frame a coherent story in which offsets help us on the path to net zero emissions.

In the end, I’ve come around to the view that most offset programs do not get us closer to a net zero world, and therefore are a dangerous distraction. There are some very well-intentioned and well-run organizations engaged in tracking and certifying offsets, but unfortunately I think they’re relying on a flawed premise.

Negative Emissions vs. Avoided Emissions