Climate: Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is

Summary:

• The idea behind offsetting carbon emissions is to pay someone else to reduce his/her emissions and to relate that reduction to ones own emissions.
• It can be a good thing - or a bad thing. 
• If the purpose is to keep polluting with a green-washed conscience, it is a bad thing. 
• If the purpose is to reduce your own pollution and help others to reduce theirs, it is a good thing.
• There are some ways to offset carbon as an individual. Some are credible and others seems to be scams and green-washing. 
• In this blog post, I'm trying to learn more about offsetting, when to use it and how to do it.

Ester hoped that her younger cousin Grace would fall a sleep early this evening - in vain. Three days before the last year project in Chemistry was due and a "B" in STEM wasn't an option. Now, Grace was occupied with a jigsaw puzzle and Ester was able to focus on her project.

The smell of kerosene from the lamp was a bit ironic - Ester's project was focusing on potential health effects of kerosene. But she needed light to get the project done in time.

Grace called for Esters attention, and as Ester didn't respond quickly enough, Grace started to cross the kitchen. Ester was too slow to stop Grace from knocking down the light from the kitchen table.

About Offsetting
Offsetting carbon emissions has been a way for people to handle their consciences (the little voice that occasionally tells you to go easy with all the cheap flights, juicy hamburgers and ultra-cool new thingys).

Put simply. one invests or donates money to a company or a NGO that makes some investment that is supposed to reduce emissions. Such projects may be:

• Planting trees that will hopefully remove carbon from the atmosphere
• Providing clean stoves to households that don't have access to electricity, reducing their need for fuel.
• Building wind turbines
• Large scale solar power systems
• Small size solar power systems

This can be a cost-efficient way to reduce global carbon emissions. This is important, since wealthy people has a higher responsibility both to reduce their our own emissions and to help phasing out fossil fuels.

Example:
Sandy decides to grant a loan of $20 to Mike using an organisation that provides carbon offsetting. Together with ten other loan-givers, the total loan of $100, enough to buy seeds and a solar light. With that solar light, Mike doesn't need to spend money on kerosene anymore. This will reduce carbon emissions, save money, allow to charge her mobile, reduce fire hazard in the home and reduce the health effects of kerosene. At the end of the loan, Mike pays back the amount of $100 to the lenders, using money that has been saved not buying kerosene. 

Sandy takes an opportunity cost as he/she doesn't get any interest from the loan, but Sandy is OK with that. The offset organization estimates that 1 tonne of CO2e was avoided using this loan, so Sandy can claim that his/her loan has avoided one tonne of greenhouse gases.

Criticism and Controversy:
There is some well-deserved criticism of carbon offsetting. Offsetting emissions can be a way for people (or companies) to green-wash them selves and to allow them to keep polluting with a clean conscience.

"Guilt-Free" snacks - a way to feel healthy while making unhealthy choices.

A good example of this is the climate offsets that some airline companies provides when booking flights. Here, the purpose is not to reduce the emissions. Instead, the airline wants the customer to keep booking flights, but with a "lighter" conscience.

No amounts of offsetting will compensate for the emissions that I do. I still need to reduce my emissions!

What to Consider if Offsetting
This check-list is inspired by the Swedish enironmental NGO Naturskyddsföreningen. Don't see the bullets below as mandatory, there might be good offsetting schemes even if  they fail one or more of these questions:

• Are you doing everything that you can to reduce your own emissions?
• Is the project verified according to a standard, such as the WWF Gold Standard for example? Is it verified and validated by a third party?
• Will you get a certificate for the offset?
• Do you think that the offsets will happen and reach the promised emission reduction?
• Will this offset be long-term, or will the reduced coal reach the atmosphere later? Consider for example the risk that planted trees might be chopped down in the future.
• Will the offset generate positive, or negative side effects?
• How big share of the money will go to the project, and how much to administration.

My Decision
In my project to reduce my own emissions, I've seen that it is quite easy to reach 50% of the average personal consumption based emissions in Sweden. Going below that will be difficult as the society is organized today.

I have decided to contribute to projects that aim to reduce emissions:

• Trine/Daystar Power is a project that distributes solar lamps. It is organized through a Swedish Comapny that allows individuals to invest in solar projects. My personal Trine sharing URL is: https://trine.com/just-invested/67366. By clicking his link, youäll get a 10 USD discount. I'll get 10 USD to my personal account, too. If you don't like discounts, you can use http://trine.com instead.
• ETC Solar is a Swedish company linked to the Swedish magazine ETC that is focusing on social and environmental issues. They have a number of solar farms where people can buy single solar panels. I've bought one such solar panel. An investment of €1000 will avoid roughly one tonne of CO2e per year and generate an interest of 2%. This project will have a financial risk, too.
• Kiva is a platform for crowdfunding individuals all over the world. In this platform, I can browse hundreds of loans and select who to support. The loans has no interest to me as a lender, but a big advantage is that I can read about the person and the project, where my money are going.

The lights danced in the room for a short while when the lamp fell to the floor. Luckily, this had been a sunny day and the energy fetched by the SolarKing solar panels had been enough to both charge a smart phone and to power the lamp for at least two hours.

Once she found the electric lamp in the dark room, she had no problems switching it back on again. 

Side note 1:
For the farmers, 2019 was a good year in Sweden with a harvest above the average. The summer has been more "lagom" this year, compared to the extremely hot and dry summer of 2018

Side note 2:
My prediction of my personal emissions remain at 3.7 tonnes of CO2e, slightly below the target of 3.85 tonnes.