What an awful, dangerous headline. At the end of the day some economic incentive is needed to get people to put land back into forest, healthy pasture, wetlands. This is an in-depth look at the current challenges — the lack of accountability, the potential moral hazard of cheap offsets — that comes off as reckless due to the article’s overall framing.
If you believe in climate change and believe that it’s a civilization threatening crisis, then capturing carbon is critical. Healthy land is vital in that fight. What we don’t have yet — but are moving towards despite what it looks like here in the US — is more vigorous taxation of carbon to more accurately reflect the negative externalities. With high enough taxes on carbon, there would be a squeeze on the carbon credit market and prices would go up significantly. With more money on the line, people would get more serious about accurate measurement and accountability.
It’s currently the Wild West — the carbon market needs to mature and become more sophisticated along side more strict pricing on carbon emissions. A less reckless article would frame the challenges we need to solve rather than blasting that credits for reforestation is bad.
If you believe in climate change and believe that it’s a civilization threatening crisis, then capturing carbon is critical. Healthy land is vital in that fight. What we don’t have yet — but are moving towards despite what it looks like here in the US — is more vigorous taxation of carbon to more accurately reflect the negative externalities. With high enough taxes on carbon, there would be a squeeze on the carbon credit market and prices would go up significantly. With more money on the line, people would get more serious about accurate measurement and accountability.
It’s currently the Wild West — the carbon market needs to mature and become more sophisticated along side more strict pricing on carbon emissions. A less reckless article would frame the challenges we need to solve rather than blasting that credits for reforestation is bad.