A number of companies are running ‘carbon offset’ schemes, where individuals and corporations can pay a sum of money to ‘offset’ their carbon dioxide emissions. These companies take your money to invest in projects that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as planting trees or funding renewable energy initiatives in impoverished nations.

Carbon offset schemes: a quick and dirty overview

Carbon offset schemes have a number of problems that make them ineffective at best, and potentially dangerous:

• Carbon offset companies are unregulated. There is no watchdog to check how they spend your money, and there are many, many examples of unethical operators and scams, especially when profit is involved.

• Offset programs create the illusion that we can neutralise our carbon emissions so that they don't matter — even though our emissions contribute to making the planet warmer right now!

• By using inaccurate ways of calculating emissions and low per-ton valuations of carbon, offset programs foster a belief that the cost of our high-consuming lifestyles is really very low.

• Offset programs rarely make any serious attempt to encourage us to change our behaviour — for example, to not fly, to not purchase unnecessary stuff — and thereby reduce our carbon emissions.

• Tree planting projects are fundamentally flawed on many different levels and cannot be relied upon to take up meaningful amounts of carbon, especially not in the short term — which is when we need it most.

• Some carbon offset schemes use tree plantations and renewable energy projects in impoverished nations to offset emissions. There are many examples of these having very negative effects on local people and their environments (e.g. through planting non-indigenous trees).

Overall, carbon offset schemes prey on people’s guilt. They are designed to make us feel better about the environmentally damaging choices that we make. They are also a way that corporations try to promote a ‘green’ image while continuing their environmentally damaging practices (for further information on the problems with carbon offset schemes, read the report ‘The carbon neutral myth: Offset indulgences for your climate sins’ at www.carbontradewatch.org/pubs/carbon_neutral_myth.pdf}.)

Offset programs suggest that it's possible to 'neutralise' emissions slowly, over years and years. They argue that people in affluent nations can simply pay for people living in poverty overseas to emit less — ignoring the fact that their emissions are already very low.

The reality is that we need to drastically lower our emissions now by changing our own economy, methods of production and levels of consumption. At the same time, we also need to be helping communities in less affluent nations to achieve their basic human rights in ways that are not carbon intensive.

Alternatives to carbon offset schemes

If we are serious about trying to prevent runaway, catastrophic climate change, we have no choice but to stop flying around in airplanes and significantly reduce our consumption. The planet can no longer afford for us to fly to go sightseeing or attend business conferences, or to buy that big plasma TV set because we want to. Offsetting doesn't make our high consuming lifestyles any less destructive, in fact, it might even make things worse.

But you might ask “What if I absolutely have to fly? What about my brother's wedding overseas, or my ageing parents who live half way across the world?” In a chapter in his book Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning, George Monbiot writes about how our love miles have grown considerably in an era of globalisation — how sometimes we need to use air travel to see the people we love.

We all need to weigh up how important our own needs are, relative to those of the planet. This doesn't mean that we should never travel to see a loved one, but rather, that as a society, we need to be having more discussions about what we might see as essential and non-essential travel.

What about attending work conferences? While many work conferences today are probably unnecessary given advances in internet technology, there are still some situations where gathering people together can be important and valuable. Of course, the question is whether a face-to-face conference is justifiable, given its impact on climate, communities and real people. Whether or not we attend conferences, we should be pointing out to organisers the high carbon costs of such events and instigating alternative ways of networking.

If you absolutely must fly to see a loved one or to attend a work conference, donate a meaningful amount to the Friends of the Earth Climate Justice Campaign rather than a trivial amount trying to offset your carbon. This way, you won't be able to kid yourself that your carbon emissions have been 'neutralised' or don't matter. Rather, you'll be facing up to the reality that action on climate change needs more than token or individual responses.

Your financial support will help the Friends of the Earth Climate Justice Campaign to address the political and economic factors behind climate change. Specifically, it will fund action on:

1. issues of climate justice and supporting climate refugees (the people most deeply affected by climate change)

2. lobbying and direct actions aimed at achieving the political and economic changes necessary to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

3. the need for Australia to fulfil its international obligations to take a leading role in tackling climate change, in recognition of its excessive historic and current greenhouse gas emissions

4. awareness raising about corporate green-washing, including carbon offset schemes.

To calculate how much you should donate, see the Air Travel section at http://www.carbonequity.info/crags/calculator.html. The calculator there will help you work out the emissions you have created (this is expressed in the number of tonnes). We suggest you then multiply this number by $100 (a sensible price per tonne of carbon) and donate the total. For example, if a return trip from Melbourne to Brisbane results in 2760kms of air travel, this would produce 0.7452 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. We’d therefore suggest a donation to FoE of $74.52.

Of course, you could choose to put a higher price on the CO2 you emit. We see $100 as the absolute minimum needed to make people really begin to take the consequences of their actions seriously.

How to donate? Click here.

Help in other ways! Your money is never enough! Please consider getting involved in Friends of the Earth or another local group to help us address the root causes of climate change.