Carbon credits have been huge in recent years, as many companies and even countries purchase them to aid in the battle against climate change. But do they work? Let’s take a closer look at what carbon credits are, how they’ve grown into a huge industry, and whether they can help save our planet.
What Are Carbon Credits?
If a company or country does something that is good for the environment, then it can earn carbon credits. Maybe they planted trees or used clean energy.
The Booming Carbon Credit Industry:
The carbon credit market has exploded in recent years. It would appear that more and more businesses are trying to appear “green” by purchasing such credits. Indeed, a projection of the market’s value by 2030 varies from many hundreds of billions of dollars. Big companies, banks, and even governments are jumping into the action, seeing a chance to fight climate change while also making money.
What the Climate Campaigners Say:
Many environmental groups and quite a good number of climate activists are also very suspicious of carbon credits. They argue:
1. Instead, we should have real reductions in emissions, not just offsetting them.
2. Carbon credits represent “greenwashing”—a way for companies to appear more environmentally caring than they truly are.
3. Money used in purchasing carbon credits could have been used in developing clean technologies or energy efficiency.
4. Carbon credits will ‘foster a false sense of progress’ and undermine more meaningful action on climate change.
Can Carbon Credits Play Any Positive Role?
Despite the above criticisms, some experts still feel that carbon credits have a role to play if they are done correctly. They argue that a well-designed carbon credit scheme could do a lot of good, particularly in developing nations, by assisting with the following:
1. Well-designed carbon credit projects could yield funding for urgently needed environmental work.
2. Credits could increase awareness about climate change and, indeed, put companies in a frame of mind toward the environment.
3. They are perhaps the agent that is useful to harder-to-decarbonize sectors as a stopping sort of measure while better solutions are being worked on.
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