The great carbon trading con

Carbon Trade Watch’s Kevin Smith has likened carbon offsets to the selling of “indulgences” by the medieval Catholic Church.

Church indulgences could be bought to forgive a sinner’s transgressions. Modern-day offsets promise to forgive our “carbon sins”.

“Offsetting encourages us to think we can buy our way out of the change we need to make to the way we live, but the reality is that the vast majority of offsets projects are either scientifically dubious or minor tweaks that distract us from the large changes we need to make in our backyard”.