Three Overlooked Problems with Carbon Offsets

Voluntary Carbon Offsets (VCO) are reaching new peaks (2019 was a record year). In this piece, I reflect on three rarely evoked problems of VCOs. I call them distance, myopia, and extraction. To me, they disqualify VCOs as factors of genuine change and sustained environmental progress. We need to turn our attention at designing alternative instruments that retain the conceptual simplicity of VCOs but avoid…