Is Carbon Offsetting A Good Idea? Carbon Offsetting Pros and Cons

Last updated on June 13th, 2024 at 06:02 pm

Wondering what the pros and cons of carbon offsetting are?

For families who love to travel, but are also environmentally conscious, thoughts about the impact of flying may loom large. There is the option to stay local or travel by train or boat. Living in Europe is great for this, with fantastic rail networks.

But if you want to venture further afield, travelling by train or boat may not be practical or even possible. Read on to find out more about the pros and cons of carbon offsetting and what you can do.

What is the Impact of Flying on the Environment?

Currently, planes account for approximately 1.5 to 2% of global CO2 emissions. However, this statistic isn’t entirely accurate as developed countries such as the UK are far more culpable when it comes to the number of flights we take each year.

Plus, it’s not just the actual flying that causes emissions. It’s also things like the manufacturing and maintenance of planes and the transportation of fuel which play a part.

What is Carbon Offsetting?

What is a Carbon Offset? Carbon offsetting, essentially, is paying to reduce CO2 emissions elsewhere to compensate for your own carbon emissions.

For example, paying for trees to be planted in order for CO2 to be absorbed from the atmosphere, or paying for people in developing countries to be given efficient cooking stoves.

Does Carbon Offsetting Work?

The answer is yes, and no. Arguably, offsetting your plane travel is better than doing nothing. But there are pros and cons of carbon offsetting.

However, there’s a view that the responsibility for offsetting is being pushed onto the consumer rather than the airlines and companies like BP and Shell. Many people feel that the government, airlines and big companies need to do more.

As Greenpeace argue in their article ‘The biggest problem with carbon offsetting is that it doesn’t really work’, carbon offsetting programmes offered by airline companies can seem more like PR exercises rather than anything more substantial.

Financially contributing to such projects can make flying seem justifiable. Plus, shouldn’t governing bodies be planting more trees anyway? In the UK, a country with one of the lowest areas of tree cover in Europe, we’re well behind targets for tree planting.

The Problems With Carbon Offsetting Projects

Carbon offsetting projects have often been linked to tree planting (an example of a ‘carbon removal project’).

However, there’s been a move from planting trees to other projects, such as distributing efficient cooking stoves or capturing methane gas at landfill sites (known as ‘carbon avoidance projects’).

Such actions can be quicker and more permanent (although they are not without their own issues).

It takes a tree years to grow to the size at which it could effectively neutralise carbon emissions for a family’s flight, and it could well be destroyed by fires or logging in the meantime (releasing CO2 into the atmosphere when this happens). Tree planting projects are certainly not a quick fix or a sure bet.

Additionally, how do we know that carbon offsetting projects, usually located in developing countries, are actually doing what we expect them to? It’s a bit of a minefield.

Carbon offsetting alone will not solve climate change and it should be something we do in addition to minimising our emissions in the first place. ClimateCare suggests that, as much as possible, companies should look to change the way they work to reduce carbon emissions first and foremost.

Then they should look to offset the remainder until they are in a position to achieve net zero emissions.

What Can We Do To Limit Our Carbon Footprint?

I’ll be honest. I struggled while researching and writing this article. What I expected was to find some helpful resources and information about carbon offsetting programmes. What I ended up finding was something a bit less optimistic.

There certainly wasn’t a clear message that carbon offsetting was the solution. Not only may it allow many of us to put environmental harm to the back of our minds, but it’s also almost impossible to know whether the scheme or project we’ve invested in is trustworthy or likely to be successful.

For me, it has highlighted several things. Firstly, the need for us to campaign for the government, the airlines and the big companies such as BP and Shell to take responsibility and make the changes required.

Secondly, it is important to take individual responsibility for smaller things, such as making environmentally sound choices in our homes and in our communities.

And lastly, it has actually made me think hard about cutting down on flying. As a family, we only fly once or twice a year.

Nonetheless, what I’ve read has encouraged me to think more about alternative ways of travel, and about locations we might be able to reach using those methods of travel. So, rather than choose an offsetting scheme,

I’ve signed Greenpeace’s petition to request our government start prioritising the changes needed, and I’m starting to think carefully about ways in which I can make changes at home.

• Take a look at my article: 30 Ways Your Family Can Help The Environment for some initial ideas.

• Then head to my article: How To Be A Conscious Traveller for some environmentally friendly travel tips.

Find Out More About Minimising Emissions and the pros and cons of Carbon Offsetting:

If you want to find out more about the individual actions you can take to minimise your emissions, or if you’d still like to locate the best carbon offsetting programs (which meet specific criteria), take a look at the following websites:

Gold Standard Verra –

Verified Carbon Standard

Further Reading on Climate Change For Adults

The Rough Guide To Green Living – Duncan Clark

On Fire: The Burning Case For a Green New Deal – Naomi Klein

There is No Planet B – Mike Berners Lee

Further Reading on Climate Change For Kids

No One is Too Small to Make a Difference – Greta Thunberg

Climate Change and How We’ll Fix It – Alice Harman