I think Lloyd employs confirmation bias when discussing offsets. He also conflates offsetting with industrial carbon capture projects, which may be too blunt of a categorization.
The journalism article from three obscure people from the UK’s Exeter University doesn’t seem to me to be a strong source—it’s opinion-laden and doesn’t link to higher-credibility studies. The three authors are a climate-modeling mathematician, a climate journalist, and a machine-learning specialist—none of them seem to have expertise in offsetting and carbon credits. Lloyd’s title is biased—about “studies” that show offsetting doesn’t work. Where, exactly, is this “study” from Exeter so that we may assess it? It’s basically an op-ed article from the internet.
The most credible article cited here is from Nature Communications. Although Lloyd cherry-picks a quote to support his position, this article claims that: “Carbon markets play an important role in firms’ and governments’ climate strategies.” And, contrary to abandoning them, the article states that “Carbon crediting mechanisms need to be reformed fundamentally to meaningfully contribute to climate change mitigation.” This study only looks at 14 offsetting studies, estimating effectiveness of only a fraction (1/5) of carbon credits. This is a more complex issue than Lloyd’s black-and-white approach here.
I agree that we should try to reduce emissions as much as possible, and we shouldn’t let promises of net zero distract us of this. However, I’m a realist in that I see that zero emissions, right now or in the foreseeable future, are elusive. Thus, offsetting plays a role, especially those projects that draw down carbon by rebuilding natural systems. Lloyd’s own behavior shows this—he is unable to model the zero-emissions lifestyle he advocates. I also agree that we need to build the science of carbon sequestration and accounting and weed out the bad offsetting actors and projects.
Thank you for your note, but I feel the attention paid to offsetting is misplaced. Look at my recent post on Apple; they do an absolutely amazing job of reducing the carbon emissions from making a computer and then make a big deal of being “carbon neutral”, which anyone can if they buy enough offsets, instead of touting the real work of reducing emissions. We have to focus on what we can do to reduce our own “now” emissions, rather than purchasing offsets that deal with “later” emissions. That is what the Exeter scientists proposed.
What I would say is that it is your own "attention paid to offsetting" that is "misplaced"--you're going in the exactly wrong direction about this. For one thing, offsetting is a very, very small percentage of carbon emissions--very few people or companies offset. We want more of these, not less!
Your article on Apple doesn't make sense to me. For one, how does the behavior of one Verra board member suffice to discredit the whole offsetting system? This is a logical fallacy in your argument--a red herring. A tool of the propagandist.
Second, your claim that we need to "focus on our 'now' emissions rather than our 'later' ones" also makes no sense to me--our "now" emissions stay in the atmosphere for many years. We need to do both. Again, you can't even do this (eliminate emissions) yourself, and you seem to think the whole economy can.
Apple did the right thing--using ecological restoration to drawdown carbon, and closely monitoring that. As to you--you're making the same mistake over and over. Maybe consider taking a break from this issue and writing on other topics?
Cap and Trade is different than carbon offsets, and it did work with sulfur oxides from coal plants. In that situation they put a cap on sulfur emissions related to the total carbon burned, then slowly lowered the cap. If you wanted a higher cap you had to trade for an emission amount with a company that dropped lower than their cap. In this way they lowered the emissions through time. We have not done the same for carbon, at least not a clearly defined. The goal is to lower the total emissions as fast as possible, and so far the cap is not lower than the total emissions. To make this work you would have to cap a power company at emissions lower than they have at present, forcing them to get any additional power for their market from and alternative source. The weakness of this, as Lloyd points out, is the failure to account for embodied emissions in the new sources, and all of them have embodied emissions at this point.
This was meant as a reply to Alan Kandel, but I could not post it.
The idea of cap-and-trade is also, as the cap is tightened, the cost of energy would go up and thus the demand would go down of those energy sources. So, embodied emissions would show up as higher pricing of goods, lowering their usage.
So if I’m understanding this, what you’re saying in effect is, the Cap-and-Trade scheme currently implemented both in Quebec in Canada and in California in the United States, are pointless programs, where good money is getting thrown after bad as well as it being a wash.
Hudson E Baldwin III wrote below, "[W]e must devote all of our energy to the two basic prerequisites. The absolute end of fossil fuel extraction and burning along with direct atmospheric sequestration of carbon. Had (sic) a scale of 2 point5 trillion tons."
The problem is that CC&S has not proven to be cost effective nor scalable. Best we're doing now is in the tens of thousands of tons of CO2 per annum, not billions. Where are we going to put all that CO2 anyway? The COP21 working papers were adamant about how important CC&S is to meeting net zero efforts, to such an extent that the bulk of future offsetting is done by CC&S and not reforestation. And that was YEARS ago. We've made next to no progress, and most efforts to restart old nuke plants (or build new ones, or standardize SMR's) have been meet with derision by the green brigade. The question still remains, How do we meet our growing energy needs—AI powered searches online have added tremendous growth in demand, for example—while also meeting the energy obligations of a growing planetary population, lifting millions out of poverty, and simultaneously begin removing all the added CO2 from past emissions, to say nothing of current at-point emissions? And, do all of that profitably? I don't think anyone has a real answer.
Thank you. If one takes a few steps back and looks at the problem objectively, we must devote all of our energy to the two basic prerequisites. The absolute end of fossil fuel extraction and burning along with direct atmospheric sequestration of carbon. Had a scale of 2 point5 trillion tons. The ubiquitous "tipping point" in any legitimate climate discussion has been tipped. This is our one and only chance to stop the positive feedback loop that will invariably take us to an unimaginable unpredictable and survivable Cascade episode
Re: “A problem I am having of late is I am quoting myself a lot; I have been writing about this stuff for twenty years now and worry I am getting repetitive.” My newsletter is only eight months old but yesterday’s post included a bunch of quotes from my first piece already!
Pardon me. That tipping point is the permafrost and it's melting. It contains over 400 ppm CO2 equivalent of methane. If that goes, we're looking at 800+ equivalent CO2 which would easily melt the methane in the floor another 1200 ppm equivalent I'm thinking 2200 ppm CO2,you're gonna be able to big bread on the sidewalk
Some good news on offsets. Here's a clever way of combining offsets with financing building efficiency, published recently in the same source as the Exeter "study":
I think Lloyd employs confirmation bias when discussing offsets. He also conflates offsetting with industrial carbon capture projects, which may be too blunt of a categorization.
The journalism article from three obscure people from the UK’s Exeter University doesn’t seem to me to be a strong source—it’s opinion-laden and doesn’t link to higher-credibility studies. The three authors are a climate-modeling mathematician, a climate journalist, and a machine-learning specialist—none of them seem to have expertise in offsetting and carbon credits. Lloyd’s title is biased—about “studies” that show offsetting doesn’t work. Where, exactly, is this “study” from Exeter so that we may assess it? It’s basically an op-ed article from the internet.
The most credible article cited here is from Nature Communications. Although Lloyd cherry-picks a quote to support his position, this article claims that: “Carbon markets play an important role in firms’ and governments’ climate strategies.” And, contrary to abandoning them, the article states that “Carbon crediting mechanisms need to be reformed fundamentally to meaningfully contribute to climate change mitigation.” This study only looks at 14 offsetting studies, estimating effectiveness of only a fraction (1/5) of carbon credits. This is a more complex issue than Lloyd’s black-and-white approach here.
I agree that we should try to reduce emissions as much as possible, and we shouldn’t let promises of net zero distract us of this. However, I’m a realist in that I see that zero emissions, right now or in the foreseeable future, are elusive. Thus, offsetting plays a role, especially those projects that draw down carbon by rebuilding natural systems. Lloyd’s own behavior shows this—he is unable to model the zero-emissions lifestyle he advocates. I also agree that we need to build the science of carbon sequestration and accounting and weed out the bad offsetting actors and projects.
Thank you for your note, but I feel the attention paid to offsetting is misplaced. Look at my recent post on Apple; they do an absolutely amazing job of reducing the carbon emissions from making a computer and then make a big deal of being “carbon neutral”, which anyone can if they buy enough offsets, instead of touting the real work of reducing emissions. We have to focus on what we can do to reduce our own “now” emissions, rather than purchasing offsets that deal with “later” emissions. That is what the Exeter scientists proposed.
What I would say is that it is your own "attention paid to offsetting" that is "misplaced"--you're going in the exactly wrong direction about this. For one thing, offsetting is a very, very small percentage of carbon emissions--very few people or companies offset. We want more of these, not less!
Your article on Apple doesn't make sense to me. For one, how does the behavior of one Verra board member suffice to discredit the whole offsetting system? This is a logical fallacy in your argument--a red herring. A tool of the propagandist.
Second, your claim that we need to "focus on our 'now' emissions rather than our 'later' ones" also makes no sense to me--our "now" emissions stay in the atmosphere for many years. We need to do both. Again, you can't even do this (eliminate emissions) yourself, and you seem to think the whole economy can.
Apple did the right thing--using ecological restoration to drawdown carbon, and closely monitoring that. As to you--you're making the same mistake over and over. Maybe consider taking a break from this issue and writing on other topics?
Well, writing about this topic certainly generated discussion!
Cap and Trade is different than carbon offsets, and it did work with sulfur oxides from coal plants. In that situation they put a cap on sulfur emissions related to the total carbon burned, then slowly lowered the cap. If you wanted a higher cap you had to trade for an emission amount with a company that dropped lower than their cap. In this way they lowered the emissions through time. We have not done the same for carbon, at least not a clearly defined. The goal is to lower the total emissions as fast as possible, and so far the cap is not lower than the total emissions. To make this work you would have to cap a power company at emissions lower than they have at present, forcing them to get any additional power for their market from and alternative source. The weakness of this, as Lloyd points out, is the failure to account for embodied emissions in the new sources, and all of them have embodied emissions at this point.
This was meant as a reply to Alan Kandel, but I could not post it.
The idea of cap-and-trade is also, as the cap is tightened, the cost of energy would go up and thus the demand would go down of those energy sources. So, embodied emissions would show up as higher pricing of goods, lowering their usage.
So if I’m understanding this, what you’re saying in effect is, the Cap-and-Trade scheme currently implemented both in Quebec in Canada and in California in the United States, are pointless programs, where good money is getting thrown after bad as well as it being a wash.
Hudson E Baldwin III wrote below, "[W]e must devote all of our energy to the two basic prerequisites. The absolute end of fossil fuel extraction and burning along with direct atmospheric sequestration of carbon. Had (sic) a scale of 2 point5 trillion tons."
The problem is that CC&S has not proven to be cost effective nor scalable. Best we're doing now is in the tens of thousands of tons of CO2 per annum, not billions. Where are we going to put all that CO2 anyway? The COP21 working papers were adamant about how important CC&S is to meeting net zero efforts, to such an extent that the bulk of future offsetting is done by CC&S and not reforestation. And that was YEARS ago. We've made next to no progress, and most efforts to restart old nuke plants (or build new ones, or standardize SMR's) have been meet with derision by the green brigade. The question still remains, How do we meet our growing energy needs—AI powered searches online have added tremendous growth in demand, for example—while also meeting the energy obligations of a growing planetary population, lifting millions out of poverty, and simultaneously begin removing all the added CO2 from past emissions, to say nothing of current at-point emissions? And, do all of that profitably? I don't think anyone has a real answer.
Thank you. If one takes a few steps back and looks at the problem objectively, we must devote all of our energy to the two basic prerequisites. The absolute end of fossil fuel extraction and burning along with direct atmospheric sequestration of carbon. Had a scale of 2 point5 trillion tons. The ubiquitous "tipping point" in any legitimate climate discussion has been tipped. This is our one and only chance to stop the positive feedback loop that will invariably take us to an unimaginable unpredictable and survivable Cascade episode
Great piece Lloyd. Thanks.
Re: “A problem I am having of late is I am quoting myself a lot; I have been writing about this stuff for twenty years now and worry I am getting repetitive.” My newsletter is only eight months old but yesterday’s post included a bunch of quotes from my first piece already!
Pardon me. That tipping point is the permafrost and it's melting. It contains over 400 ppm CO2 equivalent of methane. If that goes, we're looking at 800+ equivalent CO2 which would easily melt the methane in the floor another 1200 ppm equivalent I'm thinking 2200 ppm CO2,you're gonna be able to big bread on the sidewalk
Some good news on offsets. Here's a clever way of combining offsets with financing building efficiency, published recently in the same source as the Exeter "study":
"Carbon offsets can help bring energy efficiency to low-income Americans − our Nashville data shows it could be a win for everyone" at https://theconversation.com/carbon-offsets-can-help-bring-energy-efficiency-to-low-income-americans-our-nashville-data-shows-it-could-be-a-win-for-everyone-240600
And, by one of the authors above:
Carbon offsetting can be a tool of environmental justice. Fast Company, March 2, 2021. https://www.fastcompany.com/90600561/carbon-offsetting-can-be-a-tool-of-environmental-justice