• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
  FEATURED
‘Huge Loss’ for Local Green Economy as Vancouver Shutters Its Economic Commission September 28, 2023
Leading Climate Models Underestimate Clean Energy Progress, Overstate Cost, Study Finds September 28, 2023
Green Space Groups Gear for Bigger Fights After Ontario Reverses Greenbelt Land Grab September 28, 2023
Put Lower-Income Households First in Line for Low-Carbon Technologies: Samson September 28, 2023
Fossil Fuels Fall 25% by 2030, Renewables ‘Keep the Path Open’ in IEA Net-Zero Update September 26, 2023
Next
Prev

California Wildfires Point to Perils of Forest Carbon Offsets

November 5, 2020
Reading time: 3 minutes

Salam2009/Wikimedia Commons

Salam2009/Wikimedia Commons

1
SHARES
 

The devastating wildfires scorching California point to the perils of relying on tree planting for carbon offsets when there’s a risk that the investment will literally go up in smoke, Carbon Market Watch argues in an opinion piece published last month.

“Companies are increasingly adopting ‘climate-neutrality’ targets, which often include relying on forests to compensate for pollution,” writes Policy Officer Gilles Dufrasne. But “after yet another such offset project was swallowed by flames in California, unresolved questions about forest and land offsets resurface.”

  • Concise headlines. Original content. Timely news and views from a select group of opinion leaders. Special extras.
  • Everything you need, nothing you don’t.
  • The Weekender: The climate news you need.
Subscribe

Dufrasne’s assessment points to a list of problems with land-based offsets, beginning with confirming that the trees wouldn’t have been planted without the offset program, and ensuring that emissions are actually reduced, not just shifted to another location.

But the risk with forest offsets, brought into focus by the U.S. wildfire season in California and elsewhere, is that “any emissions absorbed and stored by a tree could be released after a very short amount of time” when it burns.

“Trees store carbon and use it to grow,” Dufrasne explains. “When a tree dies, the carbon is released back into the atmosphere. For a polluting activity (by a company, country, or an individual) to be carbon-neutral, in theory, the tree should store the carbon for at least as long as the emitted greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere. This can take several millennia, but it is often assumed, for simplicity, that carbon remains in the atmosphere for 100 years.”

Forest offset providers often set aside “buffer pools” of trees as a form of insurance against wildfire—they’re planted as back-ups, with no carbon credits attached to them, then brought into the offset scheme if other trees die. The question is whether the approach works in the real world, and “the simple answer is that nobody knows. Advocates of this strategy, implemented by all major voluntary programs, point to the fact that there have always been enough of these credits to balance the few reversal events which have occurred until now.”

But with only 11 years of experience for the longest-standing forest offset program, “no buffer has yet existed for long enough to face a very significant amount of risk—and the warming climate will increase those risks,” Dufrasne writes. “Stating today that buffers are effective is like purchasing fire insurance for your house, and after 10 years declaring that the insurance is working because the house is still standing.”

The experience in California and elsewhere raises a series of questions, he says:

• Whether enough credits have been set aside;

• Whether an offset meant to run 10 to 40 years offers enough “permanence” in a system that is supposed to run at least 100;

• Whether the trees will be lost after the offset monitoring period has ended—in which case the carbon they store would enter the atmosphere, with no accounting system in place to take notice [If a tree burns in the wilderness…?—Ed.].

The question, Dufrasne says, is whether a forest offset is still better than nothing. “Actually, it might not be,” he writes. “Protecting forests requires finance and should be a top climate policy priority.” But “when a company finances a forestry offset project, it is not financing an emissions reduction/removal. It is financing an emission postponement, temporary storage of carbon. Claiming carbon neutrality is therefore inaccurate. Credits should at most be temporary and expire after a certain number of years,” as they did under a past United Nations carbon market, the Clean Development Mechanism.



in Carbon Levels & Measurement, Climate & Society, Climate Impacts & Adaptation, Drought & Wildfires, Jurisdictions, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Iota 9/Wikimedia Commons
Cities & Communities

‘Huge Loss’ for Local Green Economy as Vancouver Shutters Its Economic Commission

September 28, 2023
1
Solarimo/pixabay
Ending Emissions

Leading Climate Models Underestimate Clean Energy Progress, Overstate Cost, Study Finds

September 28, 2023
2
Duffins Agriculture Preserve/North Country House Media via Greenbelt Foundation
Ontario

Green Space Groups Gear for Bigger Fights After Ontario Reverses Greenbelt Land Grab

September 28, 2023
151

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Cullen328/wikimedia commons

Manufactured Housing Could Dent the Affordable Housing Crunch with Energy-Efficient Designs

September 20, 2023
622
Mark Dixon/wikimedia commons

Hundreds of Thousands March in Global Climate Strike

September 19, 2023
211
Jon Sullivan/flickr

Thorold Gas Peaker Plant Won’t Be Built After Unanimous City Council Vote

September 21, 2023
749
Jason Blackeye/Unsplash

Fossil Fuels Fall 25% by 2030, Renewables ‘Keep the Path Open’ in IEA Net-Zero Update

September 28, 2023
403
/Piqusels

‘Beginning of the End’ for Oil and Gas as IEA Predicts Pre-2030 Peak

September 19, 2023
845
Duffins Agriculture Preserve/North Country House Media via Greenbelt Foundation

Green Space Groups Gear for Bigger Fights After Ontario Reverses Greenbelt Land Grab

September 28, 2023
151

Recent Posts

Iota 9/Wikimedia Commons

‘Huge Loss’ for Local Green Economy as Vancouver Shutters Its Economic Commission

September 28, 2023
1
Solarimo/pixabay

Leading Climate Models Underestimate Clean Energy Progress, Overstate Cost, Study Finds

September 28, 2023
2
DiscoverEganville/wikimedia commons

EV Rentals to Improve Transportation Access for Ontario Townships

September 28, 2023
1
shopblocks/flickr

E-Bikes, Scooters Overwhelm Toronto Bike Lanes

September 28, 2023
2
kelly8843496 / Pixabay

Put Lower-Income Households First in Line for Low-Carbon Technologies: Samson

September 28, 2023
2
Power lines, Mississauga, Canada

Two First Nations Groups Vie to Build Northern Ontario Power Line

September 28, 2023
111
Next Post
/pixfuel

No Need to ‘Live Through Darkness’: Award Honoree Fights for Energy Equity

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
The Energy Mix - Energy Central
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}