When a company pledges to cut its carbon emissions, how big a deal is it? That depends on what’s being counted. An oil company’s direct emissions – those from its trucks, drills and facilities – are only a sliver of the carbon released when the fuel it sells is burned. When Chevron Corp.’s shareholders bucked management and passed a proposal to reduce emissions broadly, the nub of the conflict was what “scope” to apply.
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has published a Manifesto for Change headlined by a commitment to reduce, sequester and offset more emissions than it generates.
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Joe Biden’s ambitious pledge last month to halve U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and the EU’s move to raise its 2030 target for cutting emissions from 40% to 55%, appear to be two leaps forward for humankind by pushing for urgent action to turn the tide on disastrous climate change.
ANALYSIS: Strong stick of regulation will be needed to commandeer big business into hitting new climate
The question, however, is whether the politicians who attended Biden’s climate summit will be able to commandeer the companies that produce the vast majority of climate destroying emissions into action to deliver their targets.
May 20, 2021
As more companies commit to erasing their climate footprint, the global market for voluntary carbon offset credits is going gangbusters. But the market remains plagued by widespread, fundamental flaws in how offsets are tallied, turning a critical element of the corporate campaign against climate change into a house built on sand.
Carbon offsets are derived from activities that draw carbon out of the atmosphere forest conservation is the most common and ostensibly allow their purchasers to move toward decarbonization while continuing to produce an equivalent volume of emissions. Oil companies, airlines, and other high-emitting sectors have touted the purchase of offsets as a promising way to make immediate progress on climate while technology catches up and the fossil fuel market winds down. In early May, for example, the US gas company Cheniere Energy said it had sold a “carbon-neutral” shipment of liquified natural gas to Royal Dutch Shell one matched with offset