In April 2019, George Monbiot said, “I believe the age of offsets is over – I don’t think it should ever have begun – because it’s now clear that we have to decarbonise our economies pretty comprehensively across all sectors.” He’s written the same thing a couple more times recently.
Tag: Natural Climate Solutions
Offsetting fossil fuel emissions with tree planting and ‘natural climate solutions’: science, magical thinking, or pure PR?
By Chris Lang (REDD-Monitor) and Simon Counsell (Rainforest Foundation UK) Unlike carbon capture and storage systems, trees do actually take carbon out of the atmosphere and store it – temporarily, at least. In theory, planting enough new trees, and allowing existing forests to grow and regenerate, could mop up some of the excess CO2 now…
Guest Post: Nature-based solutions. Separating the wheat from the chaff
Recently, British journalist George Monbiot launched a Natural Climate Solutions campaign. In the spirit of encouraging debate about the dangers of offsetting emissions from fossil fuels against the carbon temporarily stored in ecosystems, I wrote a post asking the question, “Is the new Natural Climate Solutions campaign a distraction from the need to leave fossil…
NGOs oppose the oil industry’s Natural Climate Solutions and demand that Eni and Shell keep fossil fuels in the ground
Oil giants Eni and Shell have both recently announced plans to use trees to offset some of their ever increasing carbon emissions. Yesterday, NGOs put out a statement opposing the oil industry’s attempts to avoid its responsibility for climate breakdown. The statement is signed by six organisations (Friends of the Earth Mozambique and South Africa;…
Shell and Natural Climate Solutions: US$300 million for carbon offsets
Shell and Natural Climate Solutions: Monbiot needs to address the fact that NCS were co-opted by Big Polluters long before he got involved.