A Grassroots Alternative to Carbon Offsets

When it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it looks like the carbon-intensive industries are likely to face either a tax on carbon or a market for buying and selling emissions allowances in coming years. But it is not just power plants and large manufacturing facilities that contribute to climate change. All of us are accountable for some level of emissions--begging the question, how can you account for what your organization produces?

A popular answer is carbon offsets--essentially funding a reduction in emissions or increase in carbon storage somewhere so that you can continue emitting carbon here. Although offsets have been widely embraced, the actual amount of carbon kept from entering the atmosphere is often questioned. OK, it will help plant trees. But where? By whom? And will they live the 20+ years necessary to accomplish their offsetting purpose?

An alternative for skeptics is to fund projects that have received the climate-friendly "Green Leaf" designation on our online philanthropic marketplace, GlobalGiving. Our site features smaller environmental and social projects from around the world, letting you find opportunities you would not otherwise discover. Project leaders post detailed project descriptions so donors can see exactly what they're funding. And donors on GlobalGiving can see directly the difference their donations are making through updates from the field.

Instead of quantifying offsets, we are encouraging individuals and organizations to take responsibility for their own emissions by helping these projects expand their reach. And, we are able to promote a much broader range of projects that address climate change. For instance, a project in Ecuador teaches tens of thousands of children about climate change and ways to combat it. We can't translate this into tons of carbon, but it can result in a future generation of green voters, consumers, and policymakers. Other projects from the Environmental Foundation for Africa are working not only to provide solar electricity to schools in villages in Sierra Leone, but also to train technical school students in their installation and maintenance.

Encouraging the Third World to keep walking the same well-trodden carbon intensive path is ultimately unsustainable. As David Wheeler and Kevin Ummel of the Center for Global Development report, if nothing changes in the global South their cumulative contribution to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will exceed that of the North within the coming decades. That means that even if developed countries cut their carbon emissions to zero, developing countries will face the same future--rising temperatures, more droughts and flooding, more frequent and intense storms, changing weather patterns.

And there's no better time to donate to GlobalGiving Green projects than now - the Give a Little Green campaign is matching donations to these projects by 50% through April 28th or until matching funds are exhausted.

Thanks to Bill Brower for the research supporting this post.

Comments

[Zippy53]

In essence, you are saying GG is its own certification body. Your projects are are of hgh-quality while other development organizations good works are not, or not necessarily.

Sounds exactly like a quality offset. Though good standards for offsets, like the Voluntary Carbon Standard, Climate Community and Biodiversity Standard and Californation Action Registry, have dozens or hundreds of outside experts backing them. GG has no such quality standard.

But let's put it another way.

A carbon offset is either real or not. If it is, it is a much better direct action than GG because it is third-party certified and backed by third party validators, verifiers, and standards bodies. You know it is real, you know where your money is going and you know the result is solving climate change. GG offers no such assurances.

These are all assumptions you questioned about offsets but that you do not have for GG. Which carbon offset standards do you like and not like and why?

[Zippy53]

Mr. Whittle's post is more than a little disingenuous and self-serving.

Whittle questions carbon offsets by asking: OK, it will help plant trees. But where? By whom? And will they live the 20+ years necessary to accomplish their offsetting purpose?

The answers are simple and laid out in sophisticated, third-party reviewed project documentation that are (almost) always publicly available. Sites like www.climate-standards.org house projects certified by the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance. Whittle fails to mention that standards bodies review, certify and register carbon offsets, which make them real and quantifiable in how much CO2 they reduce.

On the contrary, Whittle proposes education. Great idea! But hardly quantifiable in a fight over CO2 emissions which is all about the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. And let's ask the same questions:

- Where and by whom?
- What will people be taught?
- And how will we know if it ever mattered 20+ years down the road?

Carbon offsets, which like internal behavior changes people make to reduce their energy use, are direct actions people can take now and can be quantified and certified. Whittle proposes the intangible benefits of education over the hard benefits of offsets. Indeed, both are needed.

Whittle's self-serving rant undermines the fight against climate change just as if someone suggested we reduce but not recycle or reuse.

[Dennis Whittle - Huffpost Blogger]

I appreciate your interest, Zippy53.

I did not intend to write off carbon offsets in general. When properly implemented, they do contribute to the ultimate goal: reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases. But given the current profusion of offset providers of widely varying merit and quality, it is not always easy to know that you’re signing up for a good one. As BusinessWeek and others have reported, even large organizations buying from established offset providers have found that they’re not always getting what was advertised. There are various standardizing bodies which are helping to push best practices: transparency, additionality, verification, etc. But these bodies are not universally used, and even the best offset providers agree that there remains much to be done.

As you say, offsetting emissions is only part of the needed response. GlobalGiving Green highlights projects that address climate change in any manner—directly through reducing emissions or enhancing carbon storage, or indirectly through education, policy, technical innovation, etc. We leave it to donors to decide which type of project they want to fund. As with all initiatives on our site, the Green projects are supported through documentation and updates from the field to help potential donors answer the questions who, what, where, why, and how. If information that a user wants is shown, they can ask the project leader to include it.

You are right that addressing global warming will require us to reduce, recycle, AND reuse.