After a few intense weeks of grad school final projects and exams, I am back in action! There has been so much news regarding climate change in the weeks since I last wrote, but I want to focus these next three entries on an innovative concept that has been around for a while: carbon offsetting.
- Carbon offset: A form of certification or credit that an individual or company purchases to mitigate their CO2 emissions.
- Carbon-neutral: Describes a net-zero carbon dioxide release into the atmosphere, brought about by the purchase of offsets. (The Vatican, by the way, is the first country to declare itself carbon neutral for the 2007 year)
- Emissions trading: A business-based, structured process whereby companies and industries buy emissions credits if their CO2 outputs exceed a certain level.
The concept of carbon offsetting for personal emissions has its roots in emissions trading, which was developed to hold industries accountable for excessive harmful emissions. While I assumed that this concept grew around the need to mitigate global warming emissions, the most well-established emissions trading structure in the U.S. was initiated in 1990, when acid rain concerns were at their height– companies purchased credits for any SO2 emissions instead of CO2 emissions.