It's A Whole New World As Climate Deniers Begin To Disappear, Replaced By Climate Bullshitters
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Now let’s turn to carbon offsets, which many companies proffer as a way to claim future climate neutrality. An alarm bell should already be ringing when long-term climate-change sceptic Nigel Farage is getting into the offset business.
Offsets sound good in theory, but too often are fantasy accounting. Planting trees is a popular idea, but even if every possible new tree on the planet took root and started sucking up carbon, they would still be overwhelmed by fossil fuel emissions. Shell is keen on offsets – 120m tonnes by 2030 – while Nestlé’s goal of offsetting 13m tonnes of CO2 a year with “nature-based solutions” would require 4.4m hectares of land a year, according to NGO Grain – about the size of Denmark. Still, KitKats will be carbon neutral by 2025, the company says, so that’s nice.
Even UN climate finance envoy and former Bank of England governor Mark Carney recently tripped up over offsets. He claimed that the investment company he vice-chairs was “net zero” despite investing in fossil fuels because the company also invested in renewable energy. Some called that an “accounting trick”. I call it a pile of rubbish.
Aviation companies are also prime purveyors of green guff. Ryanair boasted before the pandemic that its CO2 per passenger kilometre was the lowest in Europe, neglecting to mention that its growth in passengers meant its total emissions were rising. London City is among the many airports claiming to be carbon neutral – actual flights not included. And British Airways’ owner has just pledged to powering 10% of its flights with sustainable aviation fuel by 2030, a date by which the world must halve emissions. Meanwhile, the UK is set to cut taxes on domestic flights – contrast that with France, which is banning short internal flights.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/06/difference-real-climate-policy-greenwashing-emissions
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