Johan Rockström was one of the scientists interviewed for an article in The Guardian entitled “Greenwashing or a net zero necessity? Climate scientists on carbon offsetting.”
Johan Rockström, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and chief scientist at Conservation International, which manages a number of carbon offsetting projects, says that offsetting can be valuable but only if companies are already cutting their carbon emissions by at least half each decade, from now to reaching net zero in 2050. They can buy offsets as an additional effort, beyond those reductions, but the offsets cannot be used as a substitute for those stringent emission-reduction requirements.
Rockström told the Guardian: “On the one hand, carbon offsetting is necessary, and has positive potentials of providing incentives and thereby generating much-needed investments, for example in nature climate solutions [such as forests]. On the other hand, there is a large risk of misuse of offsetting, if used (as often is the case) to compensate for the inability to follow the scientifically defined mitigation pathway.” He argues that a sound pathway requires cutting emissions by half each decade. This is now the requirement of the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi), which certifies whether companies are in line with the Paris agreement.
While companies should not use carbon offsets as a substitute for making real emissions reductions, they should still be encouraged to buy offsets, he argues. That is because the world is doing badly at keeping its existing forests standing, even though these are vital if we are to stay within 1.5C of global heating.
Only by ensuring that forests remain intact, by protecting the oceans so they can still act as a carbon sink, and by growing new forests and changing our agricultural practices so that soils store carbon instead of releasing it, can we hope to stay within a 1.5C limit.
Offsets, correctly managed, can help to achieve these goals, and therefore can be a wise investment for the good of the planet. “Carbon offsetting is important but can only be an additionality – we need to get off fossil fuels, and do carbon offsets,” he said.
