More Carbon Offsetting Confusion

Last month we pointed to confusion and debate about the usefulness of Carbon Offsetting firms – a group of climate change activists called London Rising Tide had occupied the offices of a Carbon Offsetting firm in protest to the ‘Carbon Neutral Con’ and Virgin was threatening to boycott UK gov plans to regulate offsetting as they said it would exclude community-based projects, which consumers are more likely to back.

Now the Independent reports on a company called Climate Care that handles British Airways and Barclays offsetting:

A carbon offsetting firm used by British Airways and Barclays has sunk thousands of pounds of consumers’ money into a project without knowing how far it has cut carbon emissions.

Climate Care, one of the UK’s largest offsetting firms, funded the project in Honduras to install 1,440 fuel-efficient, wood- burning stoves in slum dwellers’ homes. But almost two years after it handed over the money, it has not yet properly audited the scheme.

It has also emerged that Climate Care does not know how many of the stoves have been installed as a result of its contribution because other organisations have also granted money to the project.

The revelation will fuel public scepticism about carbon offsetting, which is not yet properly regulated. Consumers wanting to cancel out their emissions, for example from air travel, can pay companies such as Climate Care to invest in green energy projects that offset the same amount of pollution.

BA’s offset goose is cooked – Independent Online Edition > Business News