Articles by Joseph Romm

Breaking all the offset rules

[Important update to this post here.]

One reason I began posting my Rules of Carbon Offsets is a dubious program by the California utility PG&E called ClimateSmart, which is supposed to allow PG&E customers to become "climate neutral."

This program actually manages to violate rules zero, 1, and 2 all at once! It really makes clear why offsets are bastardized emissions reductions -- and why trees are an especially dubious offset.

This picture graces the "Our Projects" page of the ClimateSmart website. The caption reads : "Photo of van Eck Forest, courtesy of Pacific Forest Trust." Well, that burns rule 1 and 2 -- no trees, and certainly not trees in a California forest comprising half your offset portfolio. (This forestry offset is particularly outrageous, as we will see at the end of this post.)

Worse, what PG&E is offering to do is offset customer's greenhouse gas emissions generated from their electricity purchases and natural gas consumption.

The $64,000 question is why doesn't PG&E just sell renewable power to its customers? Remember rule zero of offsets:

Before you pay others to reduce their emissions on your behalf, you need to do everything reasonably possible to reduce your own emissions first. As the saying goes, "Physician, heal thyself" before presuming to heal other people.

How does rule zero apply here? Consider what PG&E says:

The fastest, most cost-effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to use your energy more efficiently -- taking advantage of PG&E's smart energy rebates and programs. After doing what you can to reduce your energy use, make the rest "climate neutral" with ClimateSmart.

OK, energy efficiency is the first thing you do -- I've made that argument myself many times. But after doing what you can to reduce your energy use, the obvious next step is not paying someone else to reduce their emissions, but to purchase green power, directly eliminating any greenhouse gas emissions from your electricity use.

Offsets should be the last thing you need to turn to

Before you pay others to reduce their emissions on your behalf, you need to do everything reasonably possible to reduce your own emissions first. As the saying goes, "Physician, heal thyself," before presuming to heal other people.

This rule is so obvious I almost forgot it. And yet many people, including Google and PG&E, don't seem to get it.

The whole point of offsets is not to make you feel good, and it's not to allow you to continue polluting as much as you want (by, say, supporting new coal plants or other dirty forms of power). Offsets are cheap and in some sense bastardized emissions reductions (more on this in a future post).

In general, the point of offsets is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and specifically to allow you to offset any emissions that are left over after you have cleaned up your own act -- or to offset emissions from one-time events such as concerts.

Global warming cancels 4th of July celebrations

Global warming threatens our White Chistmases with winter heatwaves and our Arbor Days with record wildfires. And now it imperils our Independence Day fireworks with ever worsening droughts.

The Drudge Report headline blares "No Fireworks." As USA Today reports:

Dozens of communities in drought-stricken areas are scrapping public fireworks displays and cracking down on backyard pyrotechnics to reduce the risk of fires.

"From a fire standpoint and a safety standpoint, it was an easy call," Burbank Fire Chief Tracy Pansini says. He recommended calling off fireworks at the Starlight Bowl because they're launched from a mountainside covered with vegetation that's "all dead."

The record droughts around the country have nixed fireworks in a half dozen states. What will happen to 4th of July celebrations over much of the country if, as predicted in an April Science, article, we have "a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest"?

Here are some of the places canceling fireworks this year:

Emphasis on the ‘rare’

Trees are terrific in every way but one: they make lousy carbon offsets. That was the point of the "First rule of carbon offsets." But a number of comments and some media queries have led me include two rare exceptions: certified urban trees and certified tropical forest preservation. The word "certified" is key in both cases.

For these two rare cases, I would allow trees to comprise no more than 10 percent of an overall offset portfolio (which should be heavily weighted toward efficiency, renewables, fuel switching, and perhaps carbon capture and storage). Also, their offset value should probably be discounted over time (because urban trees are unlikely to be permanent and tropical forest accounting is quite uncertain).