Up in smoke – California fires once again highlight dangers of forest offsets 

Scroll down for French and Spanish Companies are increasingly adopting “climate-neutrality” targets, which often include relying on forests to compensate for pollution. After yet another such offset project was swallowed by flames in California, unresolved questions about forest and land offsets resurface. It’s a simple tagline for green marketing campaigns: “Enjoy our product, it’s climate …

Letter from the International Coalition for Sustainable Aviation to the ICAO Council on the adoption of the Emissions Unit Criteria EUCs in order to address double counting and increase CORSIA’s transparency.

Dear ICAO Council Member, ICAO’S Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) is at a critical juncture. Your decisions this week could create a CORSIA with integrity, help international aviation achieve carbon-neutral growth from 2020 and help unleash a global market that drives investment in low-carbon economic development. But if you choose to …

Existing UN carbon credits will do nothing to offset aviation industry pollution, new Nature study finds

A new paper published in Nature Climate Change confirms that relying on outdated Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) carbon credits to compensate aviation emissions will do nothing for climate action. You can read the full paper here (paywall): Warnecke et al. (2019): “Robust eligibility criteria essential for new global scheme to offset aviation emissions”, Nature Climate …

UN aviation body delays decision on key rules for airline offset scheme

28 June 2018 – BRUSSELS. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Council approved part of the package of rules for its future aviation offsetting scheme (CORSIA) yesterday in Montreal. The Council postponed decisions on offset and biofuel criteria, fueling concerns that they may be weakened before the next Council meeting in September. The 36 member countries …

An elephant in the room

How offsetting threatens even the most ambitious carbon pricing initiatives As leaders from three major carbon pricing jurisdictions meet in Brussels this week, it is important to take stock of how effectively pollution is priced in China, Canada, and the EU, and how it can help deliver on Paris climate goals.   The 24th UN …

EU climate package to end access to international offsets

Carbon Market Watch welcomes the European Commission’s proposal to end the EU’s dependency on international offsets in its 2030 climate package but says the failure to address the current oversupply of 2 billion emission permits in the European emissions trading scheme will weaken the real-world impact of the new targets.    Eva Filzmoser, Director of Carbon …

Policy Brief – The Elephant in the Room: International Offsets in EU’s 2020 Climate Legislation

Executive Summary The use of international offset credits was originally meant to be a cost containment tool. However, due to the economic crisis, EU emissions have been substantially lower than expected. This rendered the quantity limit of international credits for the period 2008 to 2020 too generous.  According to the recent European Commission report “The …

Offsetting nature?

Picture: cc @Doug88888   By Hannah Mowat, Carbon and Ecosystems Trading campaigner, FERN   As a reader of Watch This! you will be well aware of the numerous problems the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme faces in terms of windfall profits for polluting companies, increased emissions, and delaying the move towards a low-carbon infrastructure. You …

Press release: New draft regulation on offset entitlements criticized for undermining the EU ETS

Today, the EU Climate Change Committee approved a draft regulation by the European Commission that allows operators under the EU ETS to continue the use of more than 600 million offset credits for compliance with emission limits from 2013 to 2020. Carbon Market Watch calls on the European Parliament to review the quantity entitlements and to introduce quality restrictions that ensure that credits from business as usual projects that pose an immediate threat to the EU ETS will not be allowed.