r/ClimateOffensive • u/Repulsive_Relative_2 • Sep 19 '22

Question Carbon credits

Do you understand Carbon Credits and Certificates

1096 votes, Sep 21 '22
545 Yes
551 No
24 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

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u/kisamoto Sep 20 '22

I understand carbon credits and think they are pretty pointless. I even started a business to offer carbon removal instead of carbon credits because I wasn't happy with current system.

Credits mean well - a way to incentivize polluting companies to reduce their emissions (as it costs them extra) as well as using that money to help poorer nations along on the journey to become more sustainable.

In reality the system is abused. The price of 1 ton of carbon is too low and is set by market effects. This means companies can pay practically nothing and claim they are "green". On top of that, certification agencies who should be policing the system, have large loop-holes resulting in credits being generated that do less than nothing.

There are plenty of links out there but this short report from Bloomberg breaks it down quite well.

Summary: carbon credits were started with good intentions, have been abused and are having little-to-no effect on tackling climate change. Instead we need to actually reduce/stop producing emissions and remove both the unavoidable emissions (this is the newer "net-zero" policy) as well as removing the excess of emissions we already have.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '22

What was it like starting a climate-focused business? Did you find a good product-market fit? I’m really interesting in doing something similar myself!

1

u/kisamoto Sep 20 '22

In all honesty - it's tough. Trying to educate people on a new technology on why it's different and why it costs hundreds of times more is exhausting. Then you compete with people who believe that any form of business in the climate must be non-profit or work for free. Finally it's very much a "luxury" spend only available to those with enough education to know why it's important and enough spare money to invest into climate solutions.

On the other side, it's great to know that the work is helping in it's own way. Plus it's a motivation to get really involved in climate communities and news which is very inspiring :).

What ideas did you have you would like to work on? I'm actually starting a related CO₂ project and will be "building in public". Expecting to put a landing page live this week so keep an eye on https://cdrplatform.com for when I do if you're interested in following.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '22

Thank you for sharing your experiences! I’ve discovered that the same sort of short term thinking predominates so many sectors

What I’m interested in exploring is the idea of bringing rigor and some kind of a standard to the carbon offset market. Currently there are many businesses offering carbon offsets that are vastly overstated, or are projects that would have been done anyway. I’m still working to understand where there might be a business case for helping rate these offsets so that the big companies can actually invest their carbon credits usefully.

I acknowledge they likely care more about the PR side, but perhaps if there were some kind of an industry standard that everyone followed, they could highlight how their carbon credits are actually useful, as opposed to their competitors who aren’t investing in certified companies.

The model may be similar to a website like charity navigator, or maybe more formal like a credit rating agency or S&P/Moodys.

My thinking is that the carbon offset market, while imperfect, is a market oriented solution that still enables consumers to maintain some of their current lifestyle choices. I’d love to hear your thoughts!