Essay by Eric Worrall
Carbon credits – the only “market” where false claims benefit both parties in the transaction.
Junk Carbon Offsets Are What Make
These Big Companies ‘Carbon Neutral’Dozens of the biggest global companies — from banks to industrial heavyweights — have made bold climate claims justified by cheap renewable-energy offsets that don’t counteract global warming
By Akshat Rathi, Natasha White and Demetrios PogkasGreen
21 November 2022For more than a decade, Credit Suisse Group AG has claimed to be “carbon neutral” in its operations. Every gleaming office tower, every flight by an executive — all the emissions generated directly by a global banking giant are supposedly counterbalanced. A closer look at the Swiss bank’s sustainability reports tells a different story: its sweeping claim is based on purchases of low-quality carbon offsets that experts rate as useless.
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Most of these renewable-energy offset purchases are not credible, according to Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at consultancy Carbon Direct and one of six researchers who reviewed the data. “I would consider these to be low-quality credits that did not avoid or reduce greenhouse-gas emissions,” he said.
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Purchasing credits tied to support of solar or wind projects sounds good for the climate. But experts consider these offsets largely bogus. The issue is timing: many renewable offsets came into being just as solar and wind power established themselves as the cheapest source of energy in most countries. Selling offsets for small sums as a way to support the economics of renewables doesn’t provide any real benefit if it’s already cheaper than building new coal or gas power plants.
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Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-carbon-offsets-renewable-energy/?leadSource=uverify%20wall
Greens might as well give up on carbon credits and carbon markets. How can you fix a market in which both buyers and sellers appear to have a keen interest in concealing the flaws?
Even the war on drugs isn’t this difficult, I mean at the end of the day the drug dealers have to deliver product. Going by Bloomberg, all carbon credit vendors have to deliver is a smooth narrative and a competitive price.
I’ll bet Michael Bloomberg does the same thing.
Salute!
I still do not understand how these “credits” reduce emissions of the evil gas that is causing climate change.
Maybe some kinda “capture” system? And how do you convert the tons of Co2 to $$$……
Whole thing sounds like a scam.
Gums sends…
“Whole thing sounds like a scam.”
Nailed it first try
Here in canada, I recently received my second “climate action incentive payment” check A ka the carbon tax rebate.
Of course, since the government is supposedly paying me back for carbon taxes paid, I have no incentive to change hence it’s actually a “climate action disincentive” check, which I used this past weekend to buy gas to drive from calgary to Regina for the grey cup celebration.
In reality they now send checks instead of giving tax credits because people didn’t realize how much the government is helping them as they destroy us so they switched to checks.
Such is reality
Carbon tax rebate just means the government are skimming off the top
On the face of it, you may be getting back more than you pay in, but some other poor schmuck is paying in more than they get back and, of course, companies are passing on the extra cost
How do you think the Al Gore’s get “carbon neutral”? Just let someone else plant some trees (they don’t know how to grow by themselves), and you can offset one ton of CO2 for only 23€. That is 0.17 Cent per liter fuel, which is largely free of tax for aviation. In Europe ordinary people pay around 8 times as much taxes on their fuel. But that of course is NOT carbon neutral.. 😉
https://www.atmosfair.de/en/offset/fix/
I’d rather travel via magic carpet than a carbon neutral airline, both fantasy.
Having already obtaiied my own initial certificate of exponential carbon offsets, the procurement of additional certificates for others will make my Christmas “shopping” so much easier. The virtue signalling value alone should bring overwhelming joy to others!
You want cheap Carbon Offsets?
http://www.freecarbonoffsets.com/home.do
Salute!
I don’t wanna get some weird carbon offset…..I WANNA SAVE THE PLANET!!!!
Who cares about a few $$$ or pounds or …..
I can grow my own beans and peas and chickens to have some food. Maybe hunt and fish more.
/sarc
And I still have not heard from someone that can explain how the “offsets” work to save the planet.
Gums sends…
> And I still have not heard from someone that can explain how the “offsets” work to save the planet.
Offsets “save the planet” in exactly the same way that Indulgences “save you from being punished for your sins”.
I guarantee I can stop Godzilla from attacking your city, which is an imminent threat (trust me, I’m an “expert”). Just send me lots of money and do as I say.
Basically the above is no different than the “climate crisis” – invent a “problem,” and start selling the “solution.”
At the end of the day, the “climate crisis” as they describe it is no more real than the threat of Godzilla attacking.
Both are science fiction.
What IS an “existential threat” is the non-solutions they propose to their imaginary “crisis.”
I thought Bloomberg was involved in a previous carbon exchange that mostly sold specious carbon offsets? In an exchange where the initial value assigned to a carbon credit was very expensive.
These are indulgences by the Church of Climate Change.
Good thing WUWT has already hammered up more than 95 Theses regarding the corruption of that Church’s indulgences.
Yes, and we should all be eating more worms, as per the Edict of Worms.
it is the church of green form of confession.
Intermittent unreliable energy sources (wind & solar) are not equivalent to constant stable sources (coal gas hydro & nuclear), therefore without including the cost of necessary back-up, cost comparisons are misleading and worthless.
” …… cheapest source of energy in most countries ….. ”
Can we have a link to the proof of that, please, Messrs. Rathi, White and PogkasGreen?
(Apologies for the word “Messrs.”, I now see Ms. White is Natasha. I assume the other two are Gentlemen.)
Never assume anything about gender identities.
Another way to look at it, if you compare the (as you correctly indicate, meaningless) cost of wind and solar while overlooking the herd of elephants in the room called ‘intermittency.’
As the old adage puts it, “YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.”
“Cheap” renewable energy = zero dependability, zero consistency, zero predictability electricity generation at the whim of the weather.
“Expensive” fossil fuel energy = near 100% dependability AND consistency AND predictability electricity generation ON DEMAND 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year with RARE exceptions.
I’ll run my economy on the second choice.
Another way to bring the real issues home to the delusional: You want to have power when trees come down on “grid” wires and the “grid” power goes out.
Do you build a windmill and a solar panel in your yard, or install a propane generator and a propane tank?
I live in a wood-frame house. Can I get paid for all the Carbon stored in the structural lumber?
Surely “bogus carbon credit” is a tautology
I have a certificate showing I’ve purchased 1,000,000 carbon off sets.
It’s as legit as all the other carbon offset scams
From your own company ala Gore?!
This bullshit makes me sick.
Like central banks do with money, many more certificates for tons of CO2 will be printed up than they actually can show value for….As long as politicians can convince people they need certs and and need to pay for them, it’s a gravy train of job creation, inspections, monetary transfer, central planning, government bureaucracies, green and/or extreme weather projects…..never in human history has such a grand scheme been developed….
but look at all the jobs its creating- the climatistas said fighting the climate catastrophe would create millions of jobs /sarc
Since these jobs are worse-than-worthless, the salary should be $0.0 for each such “job.”
So not much to brag about…
Bloomberg? …another trigger word: Anti British, anti freedom pro globalism
From the article: “Purchasing credits tied to support of solar or wind projects sounds good for the climate. But experts consider these offsets largely bogus. The issue is timing: many renewable offsets came into being just as solar and wind power established themselves as the cheapest source of energy in most countries.”
Say what!?
Solar and wind have not been established as the cheapest source of energy.
Solar and wind are actually the most expensive, all things considered.
From the article: “Selling offsets for small sums as a way to support the economics of renewables doesn’t provide any real benefit if it’s already cheaper than building new coal or gas power plants.”
The “economics” of renewables! Now, that’s funny!
No, it is not already cheaper to build solar and wind than it is to build coal, or gas power plants. See Rud.
Let’s see: Coal fired power plant – small piece of land with a railroad loop track to deliver coal, can be located near where the electricity is actually needed so little to nothing in terms of additional transmission & distribution lines or other new/added equipment needed.
Wind/solar: Huuuge tracts of land, much of it likely remote from where the electricity is needed in order to optimize siting in the hopes of somewhat less pathetic performance, massive additional infrastructure (major transmission & distribution lines, equipment for correction of voltage and frequency deficiencies, etc.), AND you ALSO need a (less efficient form of) natural gas plant to keep the lights on when the breezes and sunshine aren’t cooperating.
CHEAPER?! Only in the wet dreams of Eco-Nazis.
From the article: Going by Bloomberg, all carbon credit vendors have to deliver is a smooth narrative and a competitive price.”
I have some carbon credits for sale. And I’m letting them go cheap! I will not be undersold! Anyone interested?
The Greenie scams run wide and deep. It’s scams all the way down.
I just shake my head when my son talks about the carbon credits his company sells, generated by the burning of methane which they were going to beneficially burn anyway. California buys up as many credits as they can generate and they just keep doing what they were doing anyway.
Comment on “carbon credits” – I’ve been following climate news for several decades and the first info I heard on “carbon credits” dealt with power plants and refineries. In both situations, when the operator wanted to expand or update their facility, the EPA was requiring that all the old portions be brought up to the current standards. To do this to the old facilities often cost more than building new. Most of the US operators had already gone through a couple of rounds of upgrades to their old facilities and were very much into the area of diminishing returns. The idea was raised that if the goal was overall global emission reduction, why not let the operator pay for upgrades to foreign facilities that were still very dirty operators. For a fraction of the cost to make the last small improvements in the US, much larger reductions could be achieved with these foreign facilities. Somewhere along the way, this very reasonable idea got taken over by groups who were in it just to make money on ideas that had little real world benefit.