Shall the American Association of Geographers Endorse Carbon Offsets? Absolutely Not
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21373534 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kathleen Mcafee (San Francisco State University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 74 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 171-177 |
| Publication date | 2022-01-02 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Professional Geographer (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0033-0124 • E-ISSN: 1467-9272 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00330124.2021.1934879 |
| OpenAlex | W3190249380 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 44 |
Offsetting is widely embraced as a market-based solution to global warming. Governments, universities, and businesses of all sorts have pledged to achieve "net zero" greenhouse gas emissions partly or entirely through offsetting projects, many of which rely on so-called nature-based solutions (NBSs). Offsets are meant to compensate for damage caused by emissions from one place by absorbing or preventing the release of an equivalent amount somewhere else. At best, offsetting results in no change in total emissions, but as theory predicts and experience shows, that best result is rarely attainable. Meanwhile, both land-based and industrial offsets legitimize continued emissions. There is active debate in Paris-pact talks and in climate politics more broadly over how much fossil-fuel industries and industrial countries will be allowed to delay real climate action by representing offsets as if they were emissions reductions. The American Association of Geographers should not contribute to this illusion by endorsing offsetting. Instead we should take steps to reduce our own emissions and speak out clearly when our work has bearing on policy decisions and public perceptions about the climate crisis
Action (physics) · Climate change · Economics · Economy · Fossil fuel · Global warming · Greenhouse gas · Illusion · Natural resource economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Work (physics) · Climate Change and Geoengineering · Climate Change Policy and Economics · Engineering · Law · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
Introduction to Debate Two
Tackling the academic air travel dependency. An analysis of the (in)consistency between academics’ travel behaviour and their attitudes
Methodological issues with deforestation baselines compromise the integrity of carbon offsets from Redd
The relationship between willingness to pay and carbon footprint knowledge
Sustainable Symptoms
Understanding values beyond carbon in the Woodland Carbon Code in Scotland
The triumph of the placeless
Wasting CO2and the Clean Development Mechanism
Asynchronous carbon sink saturation in African and Amazonian tropical forests
Overstated carbon emission reductions from voluntary Redd+ projects in the Brazilian Amazon
Natural climate solutions
Net-zero emissions targets are vague
Getting the message right on nature‐based solutions to climate change
The global tree restoration potential
Tree planting is not a simple solution
Tropical forests are a net carbon source based on aboveground measurements of gain and loss
Slippery Violence in the Redd+ Forests of Central Kalimantan, Indonesia
Learning From 'Actually Existing' Redd
Impacts of Chilean forest subsidies on forest cover, carbon and biodiversity
How politics shapes the outcomes of forest carbon finance
Rethinking standards of permanence for terrestrial and coastal carbon
The transboundary displacement of deforestation under Redd
Forest conservation effects of Brazil's zero deforestation cattle agreements undermined by leakage
The Redd menace
Agrarian livelihoods under siege
Virtual nature, violent accumulation
The Contradictory Logic of Global Ecosystem Services Markets
Sacred groves, sacrifice zones and soy production
| Citations per year | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2022 - 2025 (4) |
| Highly cited | No |