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Effective carbon offset initiatives?
I want to offset my carbon footprint, but I'm not sure what company (if any) is really making effective changes. Bill Gates says he pays $400/ton of CO2 he offsets - but the companies I've seen imply I can make my entire footprint of around 30 tons per year disappear for $150. That doesn't really line up. And with this being a product that isn't tangible I worry about the likelihood of being taken advantage of. How would I ever know if they're using my money in bad faith?
I've held off on buying any offsets so far because of these concerns.
Your time and money may be better spent supporting politicians who are cracking down on corporations who have a way bigger carbon footprint than you.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oil-coined-carbon-footprints-to-blame-us-for-their-greed-keep-them-on-the-hook
Another approach for the money front: Invest it in companies that have the most promising or effective technologies for carbon capture.
This turns what is essentially a "good will donation" system (which doesn't work) into a sustainable one where you don't have to feel like you're wasting money, all the while retaining impact -- in fact, it's even more impactful, in my opinion.
This isn't wrong, but keep in mind that carbon offsets are one way of funding climate change technology and solutions. By supporting valid and well-run offset projects, you are giving a vote of confidence that you, as a consumer, are interested in seeing more of this. If enough people join in, that could translate to millions of dollars of funding down the road which could dramatically change the scale and effectiveness of those projects. These kinds of market forces are how we make real, noticeable impact in drawing down greenhouse gases.
A few days ago I learned of Giving Green, which is a charity evaluator devoted to evaluating ways to fight climate change. They have some recommendations for carbon offsets and renewals.
Their first recommendation is BURN Manufacturing, a for-profit company in Kenya. They sell more-efficient (and therefore less polluting) cookstoves.
There seems to be good evidence that, unlike many other attempts to solve this problem, their solution actually works. Here is a paper about a scientific study of one of their stoves. It's a randomized trial and they say that participants’ reduction in spending on charcoal is in line with engineering estimates.
I like the story they tell and I like the idea of a way of buying carbon offsets that also helps poor people. However I haven’t read the research yet and I’m not sure what buying carbon offsets from them actually does. It seems that Giving Green hasn’t verified this either?
Hi there, I work at Wren (www.wren.co). You can find a lot of conversation about offsets (our approach to them, our projects, and my personal beliefs) on this other tildes thread: https://tildes.net/~enviro/xzu/climate_change_ipcc_report_is_code_red_for_humanity#comment-6oj6
I'm happy to help answer any other questions you have. I am biased, but I think that Wren's approach is highly rational, and I think we have the best portfolio of offset projects of any individual offset service.
Do you have one of those ID numbers I can use to make my payments tax-deductible?
Unfortunately not - we are a PBC, not a non-profit. You can read why here.
I heard about this website: https://www.wren.co/ but haven't donated through it. I was also shocked how low the estimate was.
I donate to https://onetree.org/ and used to donate to https://cotap.org/ (I switched this to EFF about 2 years ago)
I don't think these offset all my carbon, but they are charities doing good work related to offsets.
Good luck in your search and let me know if you find any good charities.
I know it's not the most practical for all but I tried to do a little by planting a few trees. I know they won't be cut down for a least a long while so hopefully will do some good.
tvl has already linked back to a previous discussion we had on this issue, where I calculated that their rates would demand 1% of world GDP to get the planet carbon neutral, barring scalability issues. That might actually be somewhat realistic. Wren advertises a rate of 18$ per ton to me if I do the math. That's substantially more than you've found (5$), but still way short of what Bill Gates pays. In fact, at Bill Gates' rate it would take 20% of world GDP to be carbon neutral, which I think is a tad much. Do you know where he's got the number? Considering his wealth and reputation as philanthropist, I'd guess he's just massively overpaying to make a point. That said, the rates I often see, including the one by wren seem a bit on the cheap side.
Hey vektor! I feel like we always pop up together on climate change threads 😄
Yeah, our default $18/ton portfolio is a mix of various projects. Some very expensive (direct capture via mineral weathering is $250/ton), and some are quite cheap because of their scale and technique (The Rainforest Foundation is $14.89/ton).
So I've had another look because I wanted to see if I can find a tax-deductible in Germany charity to support here. That means wren.co is kind of out of consideration here, sorry. (Really appreciate your work though)
caution, German ahead.
Anyway, I stumbled across this post by a branch of Effective Altruism. They go over how compensation via donations might have adverse effects of "allowing sins", therefore increasing emissions. Fair. They also talk about the goal to direct support towards the most effective solution. Some of those very effective solutions aren't very sexy. They don't actually guarantee to eliminate emissions or plant trees or anything: What they consider to be the most effective path forward is lobbying organizations. Their estimate of effectiveness, for some of these: Less than 1$ per ton. Wait, let me put that differently, because with this approach imo the shoe is on the other foot: More than 1t/$. I'm seriously contemplating going that route. It is also more consistent with the general belief of "individual action is meaningless, we need political and industrial actors to get their ass in gear", as much as I disagree with that notion in some respects; in this case, we have some leverage to make that happen.
I believe he's funding an industrial-scale CO2 atmospheric capture project. I suppose he's paying a premium for the purity of taking CO2 out of the atmosphere directly.
If you want to support a novel approach to carbon credits (rather than folks getting paid to keep the trees they have on their property) check out Blue Forest Conservation. They are a conservation finance non-profit that gets investors to collectively pay for restoration efforts who in turn get repaid by groups who benefit from the restoration (US Forest Service, Utilities, Land Trusts, etc...) It's a really cool approach, particularly for projects that would otherwise never find the budget.