It's official: 25 years of evidence proves carbon offsets don't work

"Carbon offsets have existed for decades, and the size of the voluntary carbon market has ballooned to about $2 billion. Many countries and countless companies, including giants like Amazon and Fedex, use carbon offsets to reduce their emissions as they work toward reaching net zero. And yet, these offsets haven't significantly curbed global greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, global emissions are still increasing."

"As a climate solution, carbon offsets have failed-and according to a new scientific review looking at 25 years of carbon offset research, they've failed because they're riddled with intractable, deep-seated problems that incremental changes won't be able to solve. Carbon offsets have long been criticized for their issues, including concerns over greenwashing or double-counting. Multiple studies have found that individual offset projects overestimate their climate benefits."

"Proponents of carbon offsets say such criticisms focus on "a few bad apples." "But the problem is, it isn't really a few bad apples. It's pretty much all the apples," says Joseph Romm, a senior research fellow at the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media, and the lead author on the review of offset research. Romm and his fellow researchers looked at carbon offset studies spanning more than two decades, and used more than 200 references."

Carbon offsets have grown into a roughly $2 billion voluntary market used by countries and companies to claim emissions reductions while continuing to emit. Global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise despite widespread offset use. Twenty-five years of research and more than 200 references, including Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change documents, indicate offsets are riddled with intractable systemic problems that incremental reforms cannot fix. Common failures include overestimated project benefits, greenwashing, double-counting, and impermanence, as when offset trees burn in wildfires and release stored carbon. Offsets enable rich polluters to finance distant reductions and still claim those reductions for themselves.

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