How Consumers Can Reduce Their Carbon Footprint Through Carbon Offsets
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Here's your Money Briefing for Tuesday, November 2nd. I'm J.R. Whalen for The Wall Street Journal. At this week's United Nations Climate Summit, also known as COP26, President Biden reiterated to world leaders the need to quickly take steps towards slashing greenhouse gases and reduce the effects of climate change. And while we often hear about cutting emissions from things like factories or coal power plants, consumers can reduce their own carbon footprint through carbon offsets.
Yeah, it's a bit of a balance. You know, if you put some carbon out, you can buy offsets, hoping that offset will reduce what you already put out there.
So what are carbon offsets? And can you actually help save the planet by buying them? We'll talk to WSJ reporter Veronica Dagger about that after the break.
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A carbon footprint is the amount of CO2 emissions that a country, a company, or even an individual can be held responsible for. Reducing the size of that footprint can help mitigate the effects of climate change. Consumers can do that by driving less or flying less or wearing a sweater instead of turning up the heat at home. But there are companies selling another way to balance out those high-emitting activities, and they're called carbon offsets.
What is the episode’s focus on carbon offsets and who is speaking?
WSJ reporter Veronica Dagger has been looking into the benefits and risks of purchasing carbon offsets. Hi, Veronica. Thanks for being with us.
Thanks for having me, JR.
So, Veronica, carbon offsets have been around for about 20 years, but they've taken on new attention recently amid growing awareness of the effects of climate change. What is an example of a carbon offset?
Carbon offsets are credits purchased from projects that are designed to reduce emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases. For example, a carbon offset could be something like, well, you just took a flight to Florida for vacation. You could buy a carbon offset for a few dollars to offset that flight. you could basically spend money to buy an offset to invest in something like a rainforest, like the reforestation of a rainforest. Essentially, people who believe in carbon offsets say that purchase of the investment in the rainforest, that helps offset the flight that you just took.
Okay, but instead of buying carbon offsets, couldn't people just drive less or do less things that cause pollution?
They could, right? And so that's what a lot of people say. That's the first step. That's the first thing you should be doing is drive less, fly less, ship less, or ship in bulk. Combine many items in your shipment instead of doing all these one-off shipments. That's what I mean by in bulk. All those things are good first steps, environmentalists say, using less plastics. All of those things are super important and consumers should be considering that first. environmental protectionist folks say, and that's important to do. But some people will also say there's limits to that. So for example, you acting alone, me acting alone, conceivably may not make that much difference in the carbon that's emitted or taken back from the atmosphere, technically.
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