Does California need more options for forest or blue carbon offsets? - Livestream

Governments, universities, oil companies, and businesses of all sorts pledge to achieve “net zero” greenhouse-gas emissions by buying offset credits based on conservation of forests or farm soils, or carbon sequestration by waters and wetlands: so-called natural climate solutions. Offsets are meant to compensate for damage caused by emissions from one place by absorbing or preventing their release somewhere else. Offsets do not do this in practice, as predicted by theory and widely recognized in literature. Instead, offsets legitimize continued emissions.After 15 years, forest offsets have brought no decreases in total emissions; blue carbon schemes would likely have similar results. In California, offsetting enables businesses to increase GHG emissions and toxic co-pollutants in low-income and non-white communities. Proposals for California climate policy, under review in 2021, would add more blue and green offsetting options. These proposals, from fossil-fuels and carbon-trading lobbies and conservation NGOS, need stronger scientific scrutiny.

Speaker: Kathleen McAffee, Professor, San Francisco State University

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