Do carbon offsets even work? | All Hail The Planet

Join Ali Rae in this first episode of #AllHailThePlanet - a series delving into the social, economic and political forces undermining meaningful global action on climate change.
In this episode, Ali speaks with environmental justice researcher, Joanna Cabello; executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, Tom Goldtooth; and professor in environmental modelling, Britaldo Silveira Soares Filho, about the realities of carbon offsets, global carbon markets and so-called "nature-based solutions".
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[@halisidrysdale]

Excellent - as a group of farmers near Hay on Wye, Wales, this is the argument that we have voiced for a while. This is a fantastic presentation, thank you.

[@rileyjdavies]

Cymru ❤

[@nickbagnall]

They're after the land, and at the same time our food security.

[@mdhasmatalimondal1216]

What this carbon offset mean is - I want to build a 1000MW power plant. So I build 500MW thermal power plant and 500MW solar plant (grid connected) . Now I can call myself carbon neutral.

[@5353Jumper]

LoL...and they also nearly never actually grid connect the solar project. They use it to power other stupidity like brown hydrogen or CCS on a fuel production refinery. So they build a 1000MW gas power plant, then build 1000MW of solar to power the plant, the CCS on the plant and the other brown hydrogen plant and it's CCS. Now they have credit for even more projects because they are doing solar, CCS and hydrogen. Wow the marketing they can do with all these "green" initiatives!!! - they keep other projects from getting the government grants for actual green generation projects. - they keep talent and materials away from other genuine green projects - they get to keep making and selling fuels - they get to keep shipping and distributing fuels, which wastes about 30% of the fuel just in this step before it even gets to the retail market. - they slow the progress of genuine green projects and citizen momentum that would actually reduce demand for fuels Huge scam that is going to doom humanity.

[@tossancuyota7848]

these guys are one the most professional memers ive seen in my life, they even get funded by governments globally

[@Rnankn]

I don’t understand why polluters get credit to pollute when nature is restored. The carbon cycle isn’t a balance sheet, and there is an inherent asymmetry to the relationship that implies.

[@DarkDeepGreen]

Excellent program 💚We've been told these greenwashing scams for so long and it keeps getting worse.

[@richardbarber4444]

Carbon Offsets are REALITY OFFSETS. No doubt about it. There are traders in carbon offsets selling carbon credits but try to SELL carbon offsets to THEM they suddenly become speechless. I operated for many years, a sustainably managed forest,` and calculated 10 acres were needed to supply surplus firewood for my large old farm house. Ontario forest create a huge carbon sink if managed sustainably. That only happens in the case of small operators.

[@davidbarker4796]

Thank you for putting this film out there. ❤

[@naturegirl4803]

Wonderful program 👍

[@missnmass]

Great video and nice graphics! Keep going guys!

[@KirillyCosmicSpacePriestess]

Good stuff. Looking forward to your future episodes.

[@natbirchall1580]

Yes let's focus on OPEC target the dealer not the user. Consumers often don't have a choice of choosing their energy source.

[@ecoideazventures6417]

Thanks for publishing this eye-opener video AJ! However, I am still hopeful that people will realise that carbon emissions need to be reduced and then traded!

[@WrathChild-NZ]

Great video

[@richardfulfordfishlifepond89]

A must watch for everyone. Excellently presented too.

[@mikeskylark1594]

Totally!

[@mohamedabdirahmanibrahim9135]

Well assignment and enlightening

[@perfectallycromulent]

i'm seeing a bunch of people say everything we've done is worse than useless without proposing anything useful themselves. hopelessness is also a guilt-removal method.

[@Zoe-lv1rc]

So true

[@CUXOB2]

If we already burnt like a billion years worth of biosphere, and they want to make up for it by planting trees at best, where they gonna take an area a billion times larger than earth do it? Also, the process of a tree getting buried underground by other trees is gonna take like 1000 years, while we are heading for annihilation in 50 years. So how would that even help in time?

[@shanfaye1841]

Great video. Learned a lot. Would you share the type of tool/software you use to makes these great visuals?

[@aarononeal9830]

Algazera needs to talk about Ecosia they are a search engine that plants trees

[@freethinker5384]

the old manipulative tactics: trigger an emotion and relieve it, .... fear, hate.... GUILT | blame shifting: its your fault ! very good job, thank you

[@mindaugasjuozaitis8627]

Amazingly good and right-on-the-point report!

[@raeganadams7067]

this is amazing

[@anylabarthe-ks7wi]

Excelente video que nos muestra lo que está pasando en nuestro planeta para darnos cuenta que cada uno hay que poner nuestro granito de arena para la no contaminación!!

[@TheSimzelp]

The way I see it, the problem is that the carbon credits don't actually represent the carbon offset, because the system is being gamed by capitalists. Also apparently the credits are being duplicated, leading to an erosion of the whole carbon credit idea/game. The idea is pretty great in theory, but it is not being implemented in a sound way, so is actually a net negative on the climate.

[@bijjamsrinivasareddy489]

👍👏 So much information in this video

[@mikeskylark1594]

SO WELL EXPLAINED!

[@ncooty]

@16:26: There's a difference between the Congo (narration) and the DRC (graphic).

[@hokaheynineteen]

Carbon offsets had to be invented by economists. Remember the credit swap derivatives that nearly destroyed the global economy in 2008? Economists, modern day Houdinis

[@Peglegkickboxer]

Because climate policy is decided by politicians not scientists. Do you really think forcing the world to switch to electric cars is going to do anything for the climate? Get real.

[@AnonyUser-mx4uq]

it is really making sense.....good piece

[@vthilton]

Save Our Planet - Now

[@titassarker2981]

Exelent work

[@Zoe-lv1rc]

Because cattle farming is a source of biological carbon would carbon offset initiatives have the potential to be effective in ag?

[@raytycker1656]

I always fart into mason jars. But when I can't I will plant a tree so I'm good.

[@ecoideazventures6417]

@7:05 - It's funny to watch Al Jazeera question the carbon neutralness of their own Qatar World Cup! Hope their big bosses dont get too worried about Al Jazeera's independence

[@bogdanlupu3496]

Yes the carbon offset is part good,part con,wich is True. BUT how about economy? I am for reducing the pollution,but this takes time. If you cut it too fast you will end up with poverty,hunger and wars. And then we will be in big trouble. So yes I sustain Green policies done with economy în mind not emotions or wishfull thinking

[@MichaelKalmanovitch]

Good one. Leave it in the ground.

[@krishnanandpatel958]

a whhaaatttt😢 18:42

[@dystopiaeatsmoney]

Revolution Now podcast with Peter Joseph.

[@wyattbalko2160]

What are we going to do about this?

[@achalasharma8756]

Old problems, new products

[@michaelcollins6347]

That's great but how about some actionable solutions to the problem? This series seems to just tear down all attempts at solving the problem. Yes there are issues with pricing natural resources (pricing unpriced externalities) but that doesn't mean there isn't value in including the natural world in our economic models

[@Zoe-lv1rc]

I was left with the same feeling. There are plenty of people who want to be truly sustainable consumers and are willing to pay more for it. There weren't any suggestions given, likely because every solution has an environmental downside, like electric cars. Sometimes I feel like the lesser of two evils is the only viable option.

[@jarosawbielski2301]

The language of the wise is dripping with knowledge, the mouth of fools spills stupidity.

[@deere7227]

What, you mean planting a tree doesn't immediately offset my plane flight? And you mean we missed all those targets we set years ago for reducing carbon ? And the $$$ per tonne of carbon that Trudy (Canada's Justin Trudeau) has me paying with an annual increase really haven't saved the world yet? And a 2 week conference at an Egyptian resort didn't solve climate? I remember 15, 20 years ago an American millionaire buying acres of Brazilian forest as a money making scheme when carbon offsets became valuable

[@earthlynn]

I think this video is overly critical. Also, I think the rational person is not saying we can continue to extract and increase fossil fuel emissions, but rather that we need to reduce our emissions and also increase carbon capture (via offsets or otherwise). We live in a market-based world - let's be realistic - which is why so much environmental degradation has already occurred. Money talks, Greed overrides. Carbon offsets and Nature-based solutions are ideas to tap into a market-based solution. They are flawed, but they should be applauded and supported as an attempt to make things right. What other solutions are there?

[@fernbedek6302]

Waiting for tropical nations to get fed up and start unilateral iron seeding of the ocean. Not sure we’re going to see anything else meaningful happen in time…

[@nicholasgrubb151]

There used to be about three million whales doing that until we killed most of them,

[@joyfulmindstudio]

This report seriously distorts the purpose and benefits of carbon offsets and their associated trading systems, tarring the entire concept with bad-faith misrepresentations of the facts that, in themselves, are cynical lies as big as any told by the petroleum industry. Carbon sequestration via reforestation, for example, delivers enormous collateral environmental benefits beyond the very real reduction in atmospheric carbon that healthy forests provide. The fact that carbon offsets exist as a means to pay for this much-needed renewal of large-scale natural systems is a blessing, not a curse. Without contributions from the private sector, the entire burden of reforestation and other forms of ecosystem restoration would fall squarely on the shoulders of governments. Ultimately, that means that the average consumer would end up footing the entire bill for this much-needed activity, not the large multinationals who are baking these costs directly into their business models. Even worse, the developing nations in the global south where these offsetting projects are taking place would lose access to these funds, which they are using to renew their own vital ecosystems--funds they otherwise do not have. Categorical opposition to carbon offsetting projects is a prescription to *increase* environmental injustice around the globe, and no amount of moralizing by the so-called experts in this report changes the cruelty inherent in that fact. Finally, it's simply not true that global corporations are using carbon offsetting as a means to avoid reengineering their business activities, ie, their sourcing, manufacturing, and distribution processes, in order to permanently eliminate their carbon emissions at source. All one need to is scan the list of member companies to the Carbon Disclosure Project to see just how great a misrepresentation this report is making in this area. With very few exceptions, multinational companies across the board are actively at work on reducing carbon emissions at source. Offsets provide an economic "soft landing" for companies that need time to develop and implement carbon-neutral alternatives to business as usual. If today, every company were required to reduce emissions at source solely, without the benefit of offsetting to ease the way forward, the result would be a surge of secular inflation that would be completely immune to any efforts by nation-states to tame or reduce it. And who would be harmed the most by this scourge? You guessed it. The poorest people in the poorest nations in the global south. Behind the criticism of carbon offsets is an ugly reality that those opposed to this means to ease the transition to a net-zero global economy are mainly motivated by animus toward multinational companies, and in particular, multinational energy producers. Fine. You don't have to like ExxonMobile, Chevron, Saudi Aramco, or any other energy-producing company on the planet. You don't have to like the way they have polluted our environment with their products, distorted our political systems with campaign contributions to politicians, lied about their environmental impact with bogus studies, stole from indigenous peoples and destroyed their ways of life, or insisted on drilling in fragile ecosystems while sitting on top of billions in potentially stranded assets, to understand the simple fact that carbon-based fuels will continue to be burned while their carbon-free replacements are being developed and taken to scale. So given that reality, why not make them and their customers pay for the privilege by purchasing credits that offset some of the harm they will continue doing until finally their products are no longer needed by the global economy? The logic, if you want to call it that, which paints this approach as a moral outrage and a fraud is as phony as a three-dollar bill. Your reporters and your experts would all do well to examine their own consciences as to why they feel such a need to make the great the enemy of the good. Their bigotry is showing, and it's not a good look.

[@littlesometin]

You must be seriously delusional to think that consumers should pay extra money to polluting billion dollar businesses who should be doing all of that anyway with the profits that they're turning. Not to mention those actions are not nearly enough and are used as a smokescreen as this video shows.

[@ncooty]

Yes... though I admit I roll my eyes each time I hear some of the flippantly drivelled catch-phrases of indignation and self-righteousness on the other side of this as well. Just add "colonial" or "structural" in front of something you don't like and presto, you're a good liberal crusader. Extra points if you manage to frame the "critique" as a small group of powerful people wronging helpless victims. (When possible, needlessly present a cartoon version of the powerful people that opponents can use as an excuse to write off your criticisms. E.g., in this story, you've completely misrepresented the prevalence and shortcomings of FPIC, CBNRM, etc.) Definitely don't consider the culpability or agency of local people. They are the sacred, blameless props of our fictional story. It seems a great deal more people want to "raise awareness" than actually know anything or do anything. That's the irony of videos like this, because they too trade in the markets of slacktivism and indulgences.

[@littlesometin]

seems to me you're doing a lot of projecting, a true slacker is a cynic like you

[@nopenope1194]

just another buzz term....

[@douglasengle2704]

The idea that carbon dioxide could be the cause of global warming hit a dead end in the early 1990s when a report funded by numerous large oil and chemical companies was published that concluded that carbon dioxide from human emissions was non poisonous and had reasonably raised average global temperatures due to its greenhouse gas effect by 1/100°C. This meant it was impossible for carbon dioxide from human emissions to be the cause of global warming as it was know at 1.1°C. By the mid 1990s the report had been widely used in TV documentaries and its results were never discredited. Then in the late 1990s the United Nation's Panel on Climate Change became obsessed with human caused carbon dioxide emissions. Reading the IPCCs reports they are very clear and transparent their air samples where taken at 20,000 meters well into the stratosphere were water vapor is near zero and not in the troposphere where the average 1% concentration of water vapor is the cause of earth's greenhouse effect by over 99% to lower estimate of 97%. Since the IPCC is very clear and transparent its atmospheric samples were taken at 20,000 meters altitude the conclusion has to be taken with that in mind. This is a common legal back stop method to keep from being cited with fraud.

[@Skoda130]

We're ",offsetting" because industrial society is inherently unsustainable. You can't be both technologically advanced and clean. It's one or the other.

[@thedude7388]

Rubbish. Just like ''green energy'' and ''recycling''.