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Offsetting on your holidays
News Insight Climate change
Offsetting on your holidays About to jet off for a trip abroad? If you are planning to pay for carbon offsetting, buyer beware, says Adam Vaughan
20 | New Scientist | 20 July 2019
Flights are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions
JOCHEN KNOBLOCH/PLAINPICTURE
GRETA THUNBERG’S recent speech to the UK parliament was memorable not just for her oratorical firepower, but for how she got there: by taking trains from Stockholm to London, not a plane. The climate striker isn’t alone, as Swedes have driven the flygskam (flight shame) campaign. About 2000 people in the UK have pledged not to fly, while academics are being urged to fly less. But what if we still want or need to take the plane for work, holidays or meeting loved ones? The main option to assuage your guilt is carbon offsetting, where the amount of carbon you emit from an activity is negated by an equivalent reduction of carbon emissions elsewhere, through reforestation, renewable energy or other projects. Countries are also trying to decide what role offsetting plays in a post-Paris climate deal world, and many airlines will soon be required to offset any emissions growth. But does offsetting have a legitimate role to play in tackling climate change, given that it does nothing about our past emissions or cutting our ongoing footprint? Many observers say offsetting still serves a purpose. “I like to start with what we need to do,” says Niklas Hagelberg at the United Nations Environment Programme. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that if temperature rises are to be limited to 1.5°C, emissions must nearly halve by 2030 and decrease almost entirely by 2050. Offsets can balance activities with few alternatives, says Hagelberg – in his case, flights from Nairobi to see family in other countries. But he says they are only useful if you also halve your carbon footprint in the next 11 years, so he is cutting
emissions using solar heating and electricity at home. Benjamin Sovacool at the University of Sussex, UK, says if people are going to fly, it is good to offset, but better still would be not flying, or taking the train. What we really need to do is change our behaviour, but Sovacool’s research has shown
“Offsetting risks the rebound effect: people feel they can eat meat or drive a petrol-guzzling car” that people are unlikely to do so unless politicians force them. Offsetting also carries the risk of the rebound effect, in which people feel that because they offset, they can eat more meat or drive a petrol-guzzling car, he says. The truth is, most of us aren’t doing anything about our emissions at all. The amount
of voluntary offsetting, such as the sort you might take out for a flight, is surprisingly small. Since 2005, the world has voluntarily offset just 430 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to Australia’s energy-related emissions in 2016. Only about 1 per cent of passengers offset their flights through airlines’ voluntary schemes, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA). A recent report found that half of the big airlines don’t even offer such a scheme. The aviation industry is keen to stress that offsetting is a stopgap until it can bring in new engine technologies and lower-carbon fuels, which it expects in the 2040s (see “Green skies ahead”, right). “Carbon offsetting for us has always been conceived as a temporary measure,” says Michael Gill of the IATA. From 2021, many airlines will have to offset any
growth in emissions – although not their existing emissions – as part of a UN-brokered deal. But if you are going to offset, what should you look for when you want to neutralise a flight, or even your entire lifestyle? How do you know what is effective? “That’s where it gets much more murky. There are boundless different schemes,” says Hagelberg. He recommends that people use ones that have been certified by a third party such as Gold Standard, a Switzerland-based foundation. It excludes high-risk project types that might not deliver real negative emissions, such as large-scale hydropower, and favours those that are monitored, independently verified and engage local people. One key issue is “additionality”: whether a project would have happened regardless, without offsets, which is notoriously hard to prove. For example, Gold Standard is considering limiting eligibility for some renewable energy projects in high and middle-income countries. That is because while a wind farm in India in the past may not have been built without money from offsetting, today they are financially viable, says Sarah Leugers at Gold Standard. Kathrin Dellantonio of Swiss offsetting company MyClimate says third-party certification and monitoring schemes can make offsets more expensive, but are worthwhile. “Unfortunately, high-quality carbon offset projects according to strict standards can be confused with low-quality CO2 offsets,” she says. It may be worth choosing an airline with newer, more efficient
Working hypothesis
More Insight online
Your guide to a rapidly changing world newscientist.com/insight
be misused by people who want to misuse them, and therein lies the danger,” he says. Kevin Anderson at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Research in Manchester, UK, is more damning. He says he would never offset, because it doesn’t address past emissions and, in the long term,
430m
The tonnes of carbon dioxide voluntarily offset since 2005
the carbon may not stay offset. “In the end, offsetting typically contributes to locking in a highcarbon infrastructure,” he says. The evidence is mixed for whether offsetting delivers the carbon balancing it promises, says Sovacool. It is dependent on the design of the programme, the scale
AIRBUS
Green skies ahead There is no such thing as a green flight, yet. Yes, a tiny battery-powered plane (pictured right) has crossed the English channel and a solarpowered one has flown around the world. But the energy density and weight of the thousands of lithium-ion batteries needed to achieve flight mean that most aviation experts think that electric planes are still decades away. The UK government’s climate change advisers think passenger planes using a hybrid of oil and batteries won’t materialise until the 2040s, with the first “fully zero-carbon plane” coming post-2050. The air industry is pinning most of its hopes on sustainable fuel alternatives, such as ones from crops or plant waste.
Yet there have been some recent green shoots for electric planes. During the Paris Air Show last month, UK-based firm Rolls-Royce, which has a concept electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle, bought Siemens’ electric aircraft business. Regional US airline Cape Air said it would order “double-digit” numbers of a nine-seater electric plane made by Israeli firm Eviation, which is reportedly capable of flying more than 1000 kilometres. There are now 170 electrically propelled aircraft in development globally, up 50 per cent on last year. But long haul, high volume electric planes are still a long way from taking off.
and location, he says. For example, some are concerned about tree planting, saying there is no guarantee of the trees’ longevity. If they are cut down, the carbon locked inside could be released. That is one reason why forestry projects make up only a small proportion of offsetting projects. The UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the world’s biggest offsetting scheme, is considered one of the most thorough in terms of monitoring, reporting, verification and transparency. But even that has been found to be flawed. A 2016 report by the Institute for Applied Ecology in Germany claimed that 85 per cent of the CDM projects it looked at had a “low likelihood” of delivering a real reduction in emissions. For now, the scale of the climate change challenge means there is still a need for offsetting alongside emissions reductions, says David Abbas at UN Climate Change, which runs the CDM. “We need more mechanisms like the CDM, not fewer,” he says. But the window of opportunity is closing. All countries need to have reduced emissions to net zero by 2050 to avoid dangerous warming, so although there will be offsetting between sectors within national borders, there will be little scope for offsetting in poorer countries as there is today. Depending on how sensitive the climate is to greenhouse gases and how accurately we have modelled carbon budgets, that date might even be earlier. Meanwhile, as technology advances, it is already becoming harder to find projects where additionality can be proved, as Gold Standard’s proposal for wind and solar shows. Mason puts it simply: “We are heading to the end of the road for offsets.” ❚
▲ Break the mould A paper titled “Fantastic yeasts and where to find them” forced us to accept that punning study titles can (occasionally) be good. ▲ Mind over matter Wimbledon men’s singles champion Novak Djokovic convinced himself the crowd was cheering his name not that of his opponent. Nice job Roger! ▼ It’s fine A $5 billion fine for privacy-related bad behaviour is such small change for Facebook that its stock price actually went up after the news. ▼ #StormArea51 Half a million people have signed up to storm Area 51 in September. It will be a tough task because the base contains [REDACTED]. BOTTOM: ESA-P.CARRIL TOP: GETTY
planes where possible. For example, offsetting a return flight from London to New York costs £44 via MyClimate’s own website, based on industry averages, while a scheme it runs for German airline Lufthansa will offset the same flight for £12, because the firm has a more modern fleet than the industry average. “I think that there are some really brilliant carbon offset schemes that do amazing things, many of which go well beyond carbon,” says Mike Mason, founder of UK offsetting company ClimateCare. “The problem is there is an awful lot of crap out there [too].” He sold his firm to J. P. Morgan in 2008, partly because the market was flooded with cheaper, inferior schemes, he says. One of Mason’s other concerns is that offsetting is often used as an excuse for polluting as usual, a long-standing criticism. “They can
Sorting the week’s supernovae from the absolute zeros
▼ Sat-naff Some smartphones in Europe will have to rely on Chinese, Russian or US satellites after a fault with the European system Galileo. Magnifico.
20 July 2019 | New Scientist | 21
Offsetting on your holidays About to jet off for a trip abroad? If you are planning to pay for carbon offsetting, buyer beware, says Adam Vaughan
20 | New Scientist | 20 July 2019
Flights are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions
JOCHEN KNOBLOCH/PLAINPICTURE
GRETA THUNBERG’S recent speech to the UK parliament was memorable not just for her oratorical firepower, but for how she got there: by taking trains from Stockholm to London, not a plane. The climate striker isn’t alone, as Swedes have driven the flygskam (flight shame) campaign. About 2000 people in the UK have pledged not to fly, while academics are being urged to fly less. But what if we still want or need to take the plane for work, holidays or meeting loved ones? The main option to assuage your guilt is carbon offsetting, where the amount of carbon you emit from an activity is negated by an equivalent reduction of carbon emissions elsewhere, through reforestation, renewable energy or other projects. Countries are also trying to decide what role offsetting plays in a post-Paris climate deal world, and many airlines will soon be required to offset any emissions growth. But does offsetting have a legitimate role to play in tackling climate change, given that it does nothing about our past emissions or cutting our ongoing footprint? Many observers say offsetting still serves a purpose. “I like to start with what we need to do,” says Niklas Hagelberg at the United Nations Environment Programme. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that if temperature rises are to be limited to 1.5°C, emissions must nearly halve by 2030 and decrease almost entirely by 2050. Offsets can balance activities with few alternatives, says Hagelberg – in his case, flights from Nairobi to see family in other countries. But he says they are only useful if you also halve your carbon footprint in the next 11 years, so he is cutting
emissions using solar heating and electricity at home. Benjamin Sovacool at the University of Sussex, UK, says if people are going to fly, it is good to offset, but better still would be not flying, or taking the train. What we really need to do is change our behaviour, but Sovacool’s research has shown
“Offsetting risks the rebound effect: people feel they can eat meat or drive a petrol-guzzling car” that people are unlikely to do so unless politicians force them. Offsetting also carries the risk of the rebound effect, in which people feel that because they offset, they can eat more meat or drive a petrol-guzzling car, he says. The truth is, most of us aren’t doing anything about our emissions at all. The amount
of voluntary offsetting, such as the sort you might take out for a flight, is surprisingly small. Since 2005, the world has voluntarily offset just 430 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to Australia’s energy-related emissions in 2016. Only about 1 per cent of passengers offset their flights through airlines’ voluntary schemes, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA). A recent report found that half of the big airlines don’t even offer such a scheme. The aviation industry is keen to stress that offsetting is a stopgap until it can bring in new engine technologies and lower-carbon fuels, which it expects in the 2040s (see “Green skies ahead”, right). “Carbon offsetting for us has always been conceived as a temporary measure,” says Michael Gill of the IATA. From 2021, many airlines will have to offset any
growth in emissions – although not their existing emissions – as part of a UN-brokered deal. But if you are going to offset, what should you look for when you want to neutralise a flight, or even your entire lifestyle? How do you know what is effective? “That’s where it gets much more murky. There are boundless different schemes,” says Hagelberg. He recommends that people use ones that have been certified by a third party such as Gold Standard, a Switzerland-based foundation. It excludes high-risk project types that might not deliver real negative emissions, such as large-scale hydropower, and favours those that are monitored, independently verified and engage local people. One key issue is “additionality”: whether a project would have happened regardless, without offsets, which is notoriously hard to prove. For example, Gold Standard is considering limiting eligibility for some renewable energy projects in high and middle-income countries. That is because while a wind farm in India in the past may not have been built without money from offsetting, today they are financially viable, says Sarah Leugers at Gold Standard. Kathrin Dellantonio of Swiss offsetting company MyClimate says third-party certification and monitoring schemes can make offsets more expensive, but are worthwhile. “Unfortunately, high-quality carbon offset projects according to strict standards can be confused with low-quality CO2 offsets,” she says. It may be worth choosing an airline with newer, more efficient
Working hypothesis
More Insight online
Your guide to a rapidly changing world newscientist.com/insight
be misused by people who want to misuse them, and therein lies the danger,” he says. Kevin Anderson at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Research in Manchester, UK, is more damning. He says he would never offset, because it doesn’t address past emissions and, in the long term,
430m
The tonnes of carbon dioxide voluntarily offset since 2005
the carbon may not stay offset. “In the end, offsetting typically contributes to locking in a highcarbon infrastructure,” he says. The evidence is mixed for whether offsetting delivers the carbon balancing it promises, says Sovacool. It is dependent on the design of the programme, the scale
AIRBUS
Green skies ahead There is no such thing as a green flight, yet. Yes, a tiny battery-powered plane (pictured right) has crossed the English channel and a solarpowered one has flown around the world. But the energy density and weight of the thousands of lithium-ion batteries needed to achieve flight mean that most aviation experts think that electric planes are still decades away. The UK government’s climate change advisers think passenger planes using a hybrid of oil and batteries won’t materialise until the 2040s, with the first “fully zero-carbon plane” coming post-2050. The air industry is pinning most of its hopes on sustainable fuel alternatives, such as ones from crops or plant waste.
Yet there have been some recent green shoots for electric planes. During the Paris Air Show last month, UK-based firm Rolls-Royce, which has a concept electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle, bought Siemens’ electric aircraft business. Regional US airline Cape Air said it would order “double-digit” numbers of a nine-seater electric plane made by Israeli firm Eviation, which is reportedly capable of flying more than 1000 kilometres. There are now 170 electrically propelled aircraft in development globally, up 50 per cent on last year. But long haul, high volume electric planes are still a long way from taking off.
and location, he says. For example, some are concerned about tree planting, saying there is no guarantee of the trees’ longevity. If they are cut down, the carbon locked inside could be released. That is one reason why forestry projects make up only a small proportion of offsetting projects. The UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the world’s biggest offsetting scheme, is considered one of the most thorough in terms of monitoring, reporting, verification and transparency. But even that has been found to be flawed. A 2016 report by the Institute for Applied Ecology in Germany claimed that 85 per cent of the CDM projects it looked at had a “low likelihood” of delivering a real reduction in emissions. For now, the scale of the climate change challenge means there is still a need for offsetting alongside emissions reductions, says David Abbas at UN Climate Change, which runs the CDM. “We need more mechanisms like the CDM, not fewer,” he says. But the window of opportunity is closing. All countries need to have reduced emissions to net zero by 2050 to avoid dangerous warming, so although there will be offsetting between sectors within national borders, there will be little scope for offsetting in poorer countries as there is today. Depending on how sensitive the climate is to greenhouse gases and how accurately we have modelled carbon budgets, that date might even be earlier. Meanwhile, as technology advances, it is already becoming harder to find projects where additionality can be proved, as Gold Standard’s proposal for wind and solar shows. Mason puts it simply: “We are heading to the end of the road for offsets.” ❚
▲ Break the mould A paper titled “Fantastic yeasts and where to find them” forced us to accept that punning study titles can (occasionally) be good. ▲ Mind over matter Wimbledon men’s singles champion Novak Djokovic convinced himself the crowd was cheering his name not that of his opponent. Nice job Roger! ▼ It’s fine A $5 billion fine for privacy-related bad behaviour is such small change for Facebook that its stock price actually went up after the news. ▼ #StormArea51 Half a million people have signed up to storm Area 51 in September. It will be a tough task because the base contains [REDACTED]. BOTTOM: ESA-P.CARRIL TOP: GETTY
planes where possible. For example, offsetting a return flight from London to New York costs £44 via MyClimate’s own website, based on industry averages, while a scheme it runs for German airline Lufthansa will offset the same flight for £12, because the firm has a more modern fleet than the industry average. “I think that there are some really brilliant carbon offset schemes that do amazing things, many of which go well beyond carbon,” says Mike Mason, founder of UK offsetting company ClimateCare. “The problem is there is an awful lot of crap out there [too].” He sold his firm to J. P. Morgan in 2008, partly because the market was flooded with cheaper, inferior schemes, he says. One of Mason’s other concerns is that offsetting is often used as an excuse for polluting as usual, a long-standing criticism. “They can
Sorting the week’s supernovae from the absolute zeros
▼ Sat-naff Some smartphones in Europe will have to rely on Chinese, Russian or US satellites after a fault with the European system Galileo. Magnifico.
20 July 2019 | New Scientist | 21