Image: istockphoto.com/Stephen Strathdee
This article was originally seen in the Fall/Winter 2007 issue of Green Living Magazine. View the original article (pdf).
When Air Canada began offering carbon offsets to its customers earlier this year, it clearly had someone like me in mind: a frequent flyer full of carbon guilt.
Your carbon footprint is your share of greenhouse-gas emissions, which play a significant role in climate change. The average North American has an annual carbon footprint equal to 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) that you can directly control. But what's a jet-setting greenie to do?
Guilt free travel
Carbon offsets are extra payments you make so that someone, somewhere, takes a tonne of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere so you can maintain your carbon-carefree lifestyle. In Air Canada’s case, offsetting a flight from Toronto for a weekend of skiing in the Rockies costs less than $12. In the first three weeks of the program, around 500 people paid a total of $6,000 to offset about 353 tonnes of carbon, roughly equal to taking 64 cars off the road for a year.
That’s definitely helpful, but the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has suggested things won’t really start to change unless a tonne of CO2 costs about US$100. Currently, Air Canada’s per-tonne rate is only about $16.
Cheap to offset
Meanwhile, buying offsets is easy. While almost all retail providers are based in Europe or the United States, they generally sell offsets online. Their prices vary from less than $10 a tonne to more than $30 a tonne, but an average North American household theoretically could offset all its personal emissions for less than $150 a year.
Air Canada teamed up with Toronto-based Zerofootprint, which generates its credits by planting trees, conserving existing forests and engaging in renewable-energy projects. But trees, while useful, aren’t the only answer -- or even necessarily the best one. There are also companies that generate offsets by keeping greenhouse gases from being generated in the first place. Germany’s atmosfair focuses on solar energy and waste management, while BC based Climate Care, has a variety of projects, ranging from restoring rainforests in Uganda to installing more efficient stoves that reduce the amount of wood burned in India.
Not the complete solution
The bad news is that offsetting by itself isn’t a solution. Dr. Rodney White, a geography professor at the University of Toronto and a pioneer in the field of environmental finance, recently celebrated the publication of Carbon Finance, co-authored with Dr. Sonia Labatt, an associate faculty member at U of T’s Centre for the Environment. He views corporate emissions-trading as an efficient way to tackle the climate problem, with carbon offsets a small but potentially important part of the solution. Still, he says, we actually have a more significant effect on the environment by installing CFLs, using less water and walking more.
Mark Trexler, president of Trexler Climate and Energy Services, a climate-change consulting company based in Portland, Oregon, agrees. Last December, his company prepared A Consumers’ Guide to Retail Carbon Offsets as a first step towards creating an industry report card. Trexler believes every bit helps. But, he adds, “The political and educational role of offsets is probably more important than the absolute emissions reductions. If 20 million people were to start offsetting their travel, policy-makers would start to take notice.”
But if you don’t want to contribute to climate change, try keeping greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere at all. As Professor White says, start by reducing your own emissions, then consider offsets.
And sorry, jet-setters, making a real difference still means making lifestyle changes. Next year, I’ll be doing my bit and keeping my head out of the clouds.
Key factors to consider
Make sure you carbon offset-provider is the real deal:
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