Net Zero
Listen to this chronicle or read it!
What is carbon offset all about? Reforestation, conservation of wild spaces, and production of low-carbon energy: what does carbon offsetting reveal about our lifestyles and our sense of unease?
Find all the references at the end of the post.
In these days of health crisis and social misery, who doesn’t need to compensate? I don’t know about you, but when I do compensate, I end up with a liver attack and sticky fingers! Well, it’s a good thing: compensating and washing our hands of it, that’s what we are offered regularly. Do I feel guilty about flying? Is the famous flygskam killing me? “Click on ‘Plant A Tree’”, as suggested by Air France, which I thank for its empathy. I click; I offset my emissions and let’s go pack my suitcase for a weekend in Lisbon! ✈️
Carbon offset, not that easy!
Last July, the French airline had the good idea of advertising its policy of offsetting carbon emissions on domestic flights by adding the words “CO2 neutral flight” to its search engine and claiming to be based on IPCC analyses. According to Air France, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “supports the idea that the amount of CO2 emitted in one place can be offset by carbon capture and energy transition programs developed elsewhere on the planet”. The response was swift: climate scientist Valérie Masson-Delmotte, herself a member of the IPCC, reminded the airline that “the notion of carbon neutrality implies that each emission of CO2 into the atmosphere is erased by removing the same amount of CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it in a sustainable manner. Neither prevented deforestation nor investments in low-carbon energy correspond to this. Finally, a reforestation project can indeed store carbon during the tree’s growth period, but what about afterwards? This storage can be long term — for example when wood is used in construction — but also temporary — for example with wood for heating. Ouch! 🥴 Not that easy to offset carbon emissions!
The reality of ecological restoration is far more complex and takes time. In the online journal Anthropocene, Lauren Oakes, a conservation scientist in the Department of Earth System Science at Stanford University, highlights the complexity of sustainable forest restoration, including the need to select tree species that match the projected and therefore modeled future climate of each planting site.
The carbon offset market is booming
The economist Harold Levrel recently published Les compensations écologiques (Ecological Offsets). He provides a comprehensive critical diagnosis of the scope and limitations of emissions offsets as a tool to balance the damages to species and natural habitats in order to achieve so-called “ecological neutrality”. He describes the economic logic behind emissions offsetting. With the growing awareness of global warming, the carbon offset market is booming. In the United States, for instance, despite the 45th President’s administration, which was not very keen on developing environmental policies, some states have strengthened their regulations and obliged car manufacturers to offset their sales of polluting vehicles. This is how the electric car manufacturer Tesla owes a significant part of its development — more than 3 billion dollars since 2012 — to the sale of its carbon credits to other car manufacturers.
Let’s stick to fossils: offsetting carbon emissions is of course a very trendy marketing pitch. The French oil and gas company Total is proudly announcing its voluntary carbon offsetting initiative in partnership with the GoodPlanet Foundation created by photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand. The company is committed to offsetting all… no, no, not the greenhouse gas emissions from its oil and gas extraction and production activities! The company is committed to offsetting all the carbon emissions from the air travel of the group’s employees, by financing the construction of biogas plants in India.
Guilt: Saint Greta, please forgive me for my pollution 🙏
Carbon offsetting is not only for companies, it is also available to anyone who is torn between their environmental awareness and their compulsive shopping for Black Friday, Christmas or sales. With a simple monthly payment, some thoughtful start-ups offer to calculate and offset our carbon footprint by choosing to support a “community tree planting” project in East Africa, “clean cooking fuel for refugees” in Uganda, or “tech-enabled Amazon rainforest protection” in Peru — I don’t even know what that means…
And that’s it! With a few clicks, I’ve eased my conscience (and lightened my bank account), a bit like those petitions I sign online, for instance, to express my shock at the fate reserved for people who dare to believe in a possible future within our European borders.
Rationing rather than compensating
You may say: “It is always better than doing nothing”. True, but we can be slightly more demanding of national, European and international policies. Economists Christian de Perthuis and Géraud Guibert argue for a strengthening of the European system of CO2 emission quotas: rationing rather than compensating. The cap-and-trade system already allows European industries to trade CO2 allowances, generating a price for carbon, to be paid by polluters. Unfortunately, the mechanism is inefficient because free allowances are generously distributed and the carbon price is too low, supposedly to avoid relocation to less constraining regions. This is why the two economists recommend including the transport and construction sectors in the allowance policy, tripling the price of carbon and correcting the free distribution of allowances. The carbon border adjustment mechanism, proposed by the European Commission and US President Joe Biden, would sanction countries that do not prevent carbon emissions. To ensure that this mechanism is not a new form of protectionism, the two economists call for “coupling carbon pricing at the borders with a European initiative to relieve the debt” of the poorest countries.
The debt of wealthy countries
Speaking of debt, how about we start by paying our own? The wealthy countries, which are mainly responsible for climate change, committed themselves in Copenhagen in 2009 and in Paris in 2015 to financially compensate the heavy ecological, economic, social and human toll paid by poorer countries. However, a report by the NGO Oxfam reveals that they largely overestimate the actual payment of these climate funds.
To put it like another IPCC climate scientist, Christophe Cassou, what if we stopped doing harm in the first place? Indeed, to compensate is above all to change nothing.
While I’m talking about carbon offset, deforestation in the Amazon is at its highest level in Brazil: more than 11,000 km2 of rainforest have been cleared in twelve months. During the time of this chronicle, the equivalent of 24 soccer fields will have disappeared ⚽️ Well, you might say to me: “what’s the point of playing soccer in the Amazon without Maradona?”
What is carbon offset all about? Above all, carbon offsetting reveals the shame of the rich countries citizens, abandoned to their individual guilt by leaders who are arrogant about 30-year objectives but globally inactive. As the activist Greta Thunberg says, setting carbon neutrality objectives for 2050 means above all that we will continue our destruction process for another 30 years!
Well, let’s compensate before the world’s mental health is fully decompensating!
Music: Desireless, “Voyage, Voyage” (1986, CBS Disques).
Sources
« “Vol neutre en CO2” : la petite mention d’Air France qui fait tiquer des scientifiques » (franceinfo, 30/07/2020).
Concepcion ALVAREZ, « Compensation carbone : Air France s’appuie sur le Giec mais est rappelé à l’ordre par deux de ses membres » (novethic, 29/07/2020).
Christian DE PERTHUIS, Géraud GUIBERT, « Un rationnement des émissions de CO2 permettrait d’accélérer la transition bas carbone » (Le Monde, 04/12/2020).
James DINNEEN, “The Big Business (and Cheap Thrill) of Personal Carbon Credits” (OneZero, 06/04/2020).
Audrey GARRIC, « Climat : les pays riches surévaluent leur aide aux pays en développement, selon Oxfam » (Le Monde, 20/10/2020).
Harold LEVREL, Les compensations écologiques (La Découverte, 2020).
Lauren E. OAKES, “How to Plant the Forests of the Future” (Anthropocene, juillet 2020).
Lionel STEINMANN, « Tesla, vendeur de voitures électriques… et de crédits CO2 » (Les Echos, 04/11/2020).
Jingle music: Muthoni Drummer Queen — Suzie Noma
