3-2-1 ... Blast Offsets!

Efficacy of House of Reps' carbon offsets questioned

Posted at 7:10 AM on 28 Jan 2008

Some greens and congressfolk are questioning the efficacy of the U.S. House of Representatives' recent purchase of $89,000 in carbon offsets as part of their greening the Capitol initiative. "It didn't change much behavior that wasn't going to happen anyway," said Joseph Romm of the Center for American Progress. "It just, I think, demonstrated why offsets are controversial and possibly pointless." Some of the offset funds went to farmers in North Dakota who have been using no-till farming techniques, which retain more carbon in the soil. Critics argue that many of the farmers were already using no-till methods prior to getting the cash due to other benefits of no-till like cheaper fuel costs and potentially higher yields. Funds also went to a power plant in Iowa that switched from burning coal to switchgrass for 45 days in 2006, though it's unclear if the project would have happened without the expectation of carbon-credit cash. Another project planted trees on tribal land in northern Idaho and also may have gone forward even without the offset funds. House administrator Daniel Beard, who brokered the deal with the Chicago Climate Exchange, said that the point wasn't whether or not the offset projects would have happened without the House funds, but "the point is that they did do it."

source: The Washington Post

ADVERTISING POLICY

Comments: (2 comments)

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have a Gristmill account, log in below. If you don't have a Gristmill account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.

additionality

Some of the offset funds went to farmers in North Dakota who have been using no-till farming techniques, which retain more carbon in the soil. Critics argue that many of the farmers were already using no-till methods prior to getting the cash due to other benefits of no-till like cheaper fuel costs and potentially higher yields.

Skepticism about carbon offsets is a good thing, and if they are going to be treated truly as offsets (i.e. permission to emit carbon elsewhere) then the additionality test is important.

That said, there is a place for economically supporting good practices, particularly good land stewardship practices by farmers. While it may be impossible to prove that these measures are "additional" (i.e. would not have happened otherwise), they are still worthy of support because they can improve the overall health of the land and the local environment.

Efforts of that sort are supported, sort of, through various federal conservation programs. But it would be really helpful if there were some way to channel private funds to support this sort of work. A company contributing to such efforts would certainly deserve kudos for supporting a healthy environment. It just shouldn't be tied to carbon specifically. Unfortunately, that doesn't leave many ways to quantify the effort, in order to monetize it. If there was a framework for doing so, this kind of investment might do very well as business scramble to look greener than each other.

by GreenEngineer at 2:34 PM on 28 Jan 2008

hate to say it,

But Grist has become one major bitch-bitch-bitch fest. I guess enviros are known for a major amount of complaining, but when is it ever going to be enough? Wah-wah-wah, the Capitol noticed that there is an ongoing carbon-related global climate change, wah-wah-wah, their projects are possibly not additional, wah-wah-wah, where's my plug-in, wah-wah-wah, where's my light rail?

It's obvious that while many people on here, kudos GreenEngineer, understand that there are full and half-solutions, I don't think that people understand that whining is INCREDIBLY annoying. Kinda makes me want to punch the whiners in the mouth. And makes me want to vote Republican a little bit... Maybe not enough, but a little bit.

by atreyger at 6:32 AM on 29 Jan 2008

The comments of Grist users reflect the opinions of those individuals only, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Grist, its staff, its board members, their psychotherapists, or their aestheticians. Got it?