04/23/2022
The trouble with carbon offsets explained:
"Commercial forest carbon protocol over-credit bias delimited by zero-threshold carbon accounting" https://ecs.page.link/bC9WL.
The social value of carbon offsets cannot be realized without a full and accurate accounting of net carbon sequestration.
The carbon offset data for five widely used biometric-based commercial forest carbon protocols (CFCP) are analyzed demonstrating that they share a common feature of excluding positive values in the calculation of carbon offsets resulting in an annual median error of ~256%.
CO2 flux data show that CFCP carbon offsets exclude terms for soil carbon efflux resulting in automatic debits to offsets and over-crediting, calling into question the value of CFCP offsets in managing climate change.
The ∼two-decade tally for sale of over-credited offsets is estimated at ∼USD$15.7 billion, emphasizing the urgent need for CFCP alternatives to address offset verification and to address verifiable net-zero and carbon neutral outcomes.
The validity of forest carbon offsets is increasingly called into question. However, despite the use of commercial forest carbon protocols (CFCPs) for…
