Carbon Offsetting

VJsmum

Hello everyone

After a quick search I can't find any threads with this title (but feel free to merge if there are, mods). Does anyone carbon offset? Which are the best / most ethical ways of doing it?

I realise one way is to 'not fly' but as I am still flying, does anyone recommend companies to offset those flights?

TIA

sevenhills

I plant trees in my local area, generally on public wasteland. I don't believe there is anything that we can do to stop climate change. But we can do small things for our local area.

pinnks

In my view offsetting is a con. One can (and perhaps should) do the offsetting thing anyway, so to suggest that planting trees or whatever somehow makes up for pumping tonnes of CO2 into the environment is nonsense. The only way to truly offset is to stop doing that but as you say you still need to fly, so have no choice on that front.

zeupater

Hi


Old consideration addressed multiple times .... eg 19/11/2012 ... https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=57346391&postcount=24

Hi

It's even more complicated than that, the planting of more trees needs to be on a properly managed sustainable basis ....

.... an example ....

About a mile or so from here there is a recent tree plantation where individuals and organisations have 'sponsored' trees to offset personal/business carbon emissions. They have nicely printed professional looking certificates to recognise what they have done which state the carbon savings (potential) and have their names engraved on a large plaque at the main entrance to the planted area ..... result, feel-good factor and not a lot else .... why ?, well, because of the planting density it's likely that much fewer than 1/25 trees will reach, or even be allowed to reach, maturity .... the majority of certificates issued describing a carbon offset measured in tonnes will probably never realise a saving measured in the same number of kilogrammes ....

We buy our logs from sustainably managed ancient woodland a couple of miles away. The sawmill supplies to furniture, building renovation, flooring and timber merchants, but between half and three-quarters of felling by weight is unsuitable and would either be chipped, pulped or processed for firewood. The sawmill buildings are around 150 years old and process wood from the same land that they did when originally built, land which has trees standing which were there when Nelson's navy was being built ... that's what true sustainability means, so I have absolutely no qualms over burning our logs ....

HTH
Z

HTH
Z

sevenhills

A poster recently said that they use "100% carbon offset gas".


If millions of ££ are being "offset" has it cured climate change yet? I am not aware of any changes due to offsetting.


Bulb Energy - "Our gas is now 100% carbon neutral".


https://bulb.co.uk/blog/our-gas-is-now-carbon-neutral


Can anyone provide examples of the actual benefits, trees planted etc?

Martyn1981

sevenhills wrote: »

A poster recently said that they use "100% carbon offset gas".


If millions of ££ are being "offset" has it cured climate change yet? I am not aware of any changes due to offsetting.


Bulb Energy - "Our gas is now 100% carbon neutral".


https://bulb.co.uk/blog/our-gas-is-now-carbon-neutral


Can anyone provide examples of the actual benefits, trees planted etc?

Sadly, all the benefits from reduced emissions and carbon offsetting are/will be seen in reduced negatives. That doesn't mean they aren't important, of course they are, but if you asked 'has it cured climate change yet?' then that's a loaded question as AGW/climate crisis is actually getting worse every day as we release more GHG's into the environment, and are (sadly) in fact still increasing the annual amount, though it's close to peeking*. So there is no 'cure' for AGW, just a point at which we stop making it worse, which the Paris Accord has set at +1.5C (if we roll out carbon capture technology from 2050-2100), or +2C without it. The +1.5C is estimated to give us a 2:1 chance of avoiding runaway global warming ....... not the best odds!

*Remember that even when GHG emissions peek, and then start to fall, that still means we are adding ever more to the environment, just at a lower annual rate than before, so a reduction (soon hopefully) and a zero target by 2050, still means a vast amount more being added to the problem between now and 2050.

Sorry for the downer.

1961Nick

sevenhills wrote: »

A poster recently said that they use "100% carbon offset gas".


If millions of ££ are being "offset" has it cured climate change yet? I am not aware of any changes due to offsetting.


Bulb Energy - "Our gas is now 100% carbon neutral".


https://bulb.co.uk/blog/our-gas-is-now-carbon-neutral


Can anyone provide examples of the actual benefits, trees planted etc?

I did a little exercise to see what would actually be required to carbon offset my gas usage - I'd need to plant & maintain 2 acres of woodland & it'd still take 10 years for the trees to develop enough to reach carbon parity with my gas consumption.

Energy suppliers are selling carbon offset gas by accounting for the tree's lifetime carbon absorption in year 1 ... rather than the 100(?) year lifespan of the tree.

It's better than nothing, but there's always the danger that by removing carbon guilt, we could actually make the problem worse.

Martyn1981

Just a thought, no idea how practical it is, but just trying to tie multiple issues together.

So, CCS (carbon capture and sequestration) has pretty much been a complete failure. the idea was really promoted/pushed by the FF industry as a way of delaying action on emissions and promotion of RE ..... since 'we can solve it, so no need to worry' was being offered.

The main problem(s) with CCS is, it's expensive, very tricky (so much info hidden in that), and increases the energy consumption of the FF powerstation to run the CCS kit - so more fuel, more cost, more emissions and so on. Plus, they can't catch it all, so at best it would only reduce the problem.

Utility Spends $7.5 Billion To Prove Clean Coal Is A Cruel Hoax

Also, carbon capture from the air, whilst doable, is also too expensive (but hoped for 2050 onwards).

But, and it's a big but, full of lots of but holes (oh er missus!), what about BECCS (bio-energy CCS), this also utilises the CO2 rich emissions (v's tiny CO2 in the air) from a thermal powerstation, but if for instance, the powerstation is burning sustainable wood/wood pellets, then it's approx carbon neutral, and when CCS is added, the whole process becomes carbon negative.

An additional plus, is that it's 24/7 reliable, so can be used to support intermittent renewables, with it's stockpile of wood being a form of storage.

Now, back to trees, and I hope I haven't mis-remembered this, but I think Ukraine has a simply vast potential for sustainable bio-mass production for Europe if commercialised, or alternatively, I suppose they could build BECCS powerstations, perhaps with European support, to operate as carbon removal, and also to support European leccy demand (again as part of a renewable mix).

Sorry for the waffle, but I thought this crossed with others issues, and perhaps as a source of carbon offsetting, payments to such a scheme could remove carbon in line with the emissions (needing off-setting) whilst supporting an industry and producing 'green(ish)' leccy.

Plasticfreemama

Very interesting topic and definitely not an easy question to answer. We actually started driving a lot less and limiting our flying (unless really necessary we try to avoid is as much as we can, although not always easy).I feel money invested in planted trees is definitely good, but more needs to be done to make aviation a much greener way of travelling

hadenmaiden

It's a complex issue, but we do need to do what we can. I've been looking at Gold standard and see that Clear is based in the UK and has a good range of Quality Assurance Standard projects other than planting trees.

Plasticfreemama

Thanks I will be looking into it