(00:01):
Well, I'm in over my head. No one told me trying to keep my footprint was harder than I thought it could be. I'm in over my head. What do I really need? Trying to save the planet? Oh, someone please save me trying to save the planet. Oh, will someone please save me?

(00:25):
Welcome to uni over my head. I'm Michael Bartz. My guest today is Anja Kollmuss. Anja has been analyzing climate policies for over 20 years. Writing studies and advising NGOs and governments on international European and national climate policy. For many years, her main research area has been carbon markets. She first worked at Tufts University and then at the Stockholm Environmental Institute. And for many years, as an independent expert and Stockholm environmental Institute, affiliated researcher, she's also an artist and a teacher. Welcome to in over my head Anja.

(00:58):
Welcome. Thank you for having me.

(01:00):
So in talking about the, just transition, I covered poverty and inequality, and this got me thinking about money and how we use it to affect climate change. Something I'm very curious about is carbon offsets. Like the ones you might purchase when you book a flight to offset your emissions. I wonder if they're effective and you've researched this topic extensively. So I'm excited to dig into the details with you to help with our understanding. I think it might be good to start with a brief explanation and three behind carbon offsets. So what exactly are carbon offsets?

(01:27):
Well, carbon offsets are basically a certificate you can purchase for a ton of greenhouse gases or for a ton of CO2 that has been reduced by some climate project. And they are used to compensate for your own carbon emissions. And they are used by companies. They are used by countries, but they can also be used by individuals.

(01:56):
Yeah. And so like, let's say with that flight example, yes, you are purchasing that, but that's coming from the airline company. Is that mandated from the government level with the airline company, or is that a choice that they make to have carbon offsets?

(02:08):
This is not mandatory. There is an international agreement under IKO. That's the UN agency that regulates everything that has to do with air travel air transport. So they have made an agreement that they will compensate some of their emissions, but it's basically voluntary. And also when you purchase something for your flight, that's definitely voluntary

(02:36):
Because emissions are global. My understanding is that other countries are purchasing offsets from different countries. Is that correct?

(02:43):
Not necessarily. So, I mean, you can also purchase offsets from your own country, but in general, it that's how it works. Most carbon offsets have been used by richer countries to compensate for some of their emissions. And most of them have come from poor countries from developing countries, from projects that have been implemented there.

(03:08):
In some of your writing that I was looking at, you talked about things like double counting. Tell me about that.

(03:15):
Yeah. So in theory, carbon offsetting works well because climate change is a global issue. So it's not like a local pollution issue where, you know, it doesn't really help anything. If you help reduce air pollution in one city that doesn't help really in any other city. So that's a local problem. But with climate change, because greenhouse gas is dispersed globally, you can basically reduce emission anywhere and it will be good for the climate. So in that respect, it works well. Unfortunately, if you then look in detail, does what you purchase represent a ton of emissions reductions there, it gets quite difficult. And there is a few issues that make these so difficult. One of them is double counting to make sure that your reduction is not also counted by some other entity, most likely by the seller country, most or most likely by the country in which the climate project is located, because it will automatically also reduce their emissions, the country's whole emissions.

(04:24):
So the country has to add artificially to their inventory, to their greenhouse gas inventory, those admissions, they have sold because otherwise they're counted twice. So in the Paris agreement, there are decent rules to ensure that this doesn't happen on a large scale. Still, it's actually difficult to completely avoid that. I would say this is not the main issue. The main issue is that most of these carbon assets are not additional meaning they finance projects that would have happened anyway, or that have happened for other reasons. For example, if it's renewable energy, they will make much more money by selling the electricity they generate than by the revenue they make from selling carbon offsets. So it's really hard to claim that the carbon offsets that you have purchased are financing this renewable energy plan, and that's actually necessary in order for you to claim that you can compensate for your emission.

(05:30):
So this additionality issue is very difficult to resolve for a number of reasons. It's difficult to prove. Also, the project developer always has more information than any auditor has. So it's quite easy for the project developer to portray the project in a way that it makes it look like it really needed the money. The auditor is paid by the project developer. So there is an inherent conflict of interest. So this additionality issue really is one that is very difficult to resolve. There are some project types that are more likely to be additional than others. These are projects that really only get revenue from the sale of carbon offset. For example, if you have an industrial plant that as a byproduct produces a very potent greenhouse gas, so this is usually not CO2. This is nitrous oxide or some other potent greenhouse gas, and they are not required by law to destroy this gas.

(06:38):
So they just vent it in the air. And now because they can generate carbon offsets, they install some kind of catalyst that destroys this greenhouse gas. Then you can be pretty sure that the company would not have done this if they didn't have revenue from the sale of carbon offset. But there, the issue is that you create a perverse incentive for that industry to not want to be legislated. Cause the easiest thing would of course be to just legislate that they cannot vent those greenhouse gas emissions just into the air. And then there is also some projects where the emissions reductions just are overestimated. In most cases, they have to be calculated based on some kind of a baseline. So, you know, what would have happened if this project hadn't been implemented, and this is also tricky, this is complicated. And it changes at the time. And there are many, many issues surrounding that. So that can also be a problem

(07:41):
In the one article that I was reading of yours. You did give a few kind of quick and dirty rules of thumb with types of offsets. And you talked about renewable energy projects. Maybe tell me a bit about that.

(07:52):
Yeah. So as I mentioned, renewable energy projects usually are not additional because the revenue they make from selling offsets is so small compared to the revenue that they make from selling. It's really hard to claim that these projects are additional, that these projects were made possible by carbon offsets. Of course, companies will sell you these offsets will say that. And it's actually not an easy thing to understand because people just see windmills or solar power and they think, oh, that's wonderful. Of course, that's good. How could this be bad? And of course, as you know, as project, as a renewable energy project, they are completely good and important and absolutely necessary, but they are not really suitable as an offset.

(08:42):
So another one I was just really curious about when I was reading that article was about tree planting projects. Like some companies, they say that were planting trees when you buy this product. I mean, that's kind of a form of offsetting. Is that effective?

(08:55):
I wish I could say yes because protecting forests, replanting forests managing forests in a sustainable way is so, so important as offset again, to compensate for someone else's emissions, I would go as far to say they are wholly UN suitable for a variety of reasons. It's so difficult to have a baseline, you know, to know what would have happened. If you didn't protect this forest, how much of it would have been cut down? How much of it is now being cut down somewhere else? Because you're protecting this forest. This is problem is called leakage. How long will this forest will be standing? Because there might be a fire. There might be pests, there might be illegal logging. Also. You're not really reducing additional emissions. And so you are kind of comparing apples and oranges. So the buyer is producing emissions and to compensate, they're buying something that is just preventing emissions from happening.

(10:06):
So that's also really difficult. And then in terms of planting forests, again, you have some of the same issues. You don't know how well these forests will grow. You don't know how long they will grow. You don't know if some other forest or some other area will be cleared because of this forest being planted. Also, if you have forest monocultures, such as eucalyptus tree plantations, you might absorb a lot of carbon fat in terms of the ecological benefits, you are really creating kind of an ecological dead zone. I mean, there's nothing much happening in these monoculture tree farms. So it's really difficult if you would like to support a good forestry project in terms of it being a development project. Like if it provides a livelihood for local populations to say, grow coffee in a sustainable way and to have sustainable acro forestry, by all means, support it, but don't think you can compensate for your emissions. So on the whole, I wouldn't say there are no good carbon offset projects, but it's really difficult to identify good ones. And in our research and in research that others have done, we have estimated or calculated that about three-quarters of all offsets did not represent the emissions reductions they claim.

(11:43):
Yeah, no, it's all it's all very complicated as if we've made quite clear, especially for the individual liquid I'm talking about, oh, should I buy an offset? Clearly, there are a lot of factors to consider. That's like you said, you don't really know as the individual.

(11:56):
Yes. I actually think you cannot know. It's too difficult to be able to know as a consumer, if what you are buying is of high quality, it's really difficult to know. I mean, even for me as the researcher who has really, really pulled over these projects and project documents for years, it's hard for me to know. It's time to move beyond offsetting is because we just don't have enough carbon budget left that we can afford to compensate for our own emissions. We really need to reduce our own emissions. And in terms of people purchasing carbon offsets, I feel that that's one of the greatest dangers because people are made to believe that they are doing something meaningful for the climate. And they are left to believe that we are still in a position where we can tinker at the margin, but we cannot. I mean, you know, I've been wor working in this field for 25 years, maybe 25 years ago, you could make such claims, but more than now, I mean, now we know the carbon budget we have left is below 500 billion, tons of CO2. We are going to gobble this up in a few years. If you want to have a li higher likelihood of control of keeping temperatures well below two degrees then the carbon budget is considerably smaller. If you really take that in, if you really contemplate what we are up against and what is needed, you will realize that, you know, compensating your flight, isn't that meaningful. It's simply not enough in terms of what we need to do.

(13:49):
So this show is about empowering citizens to take action when it comes to the climate crisis. So what can people do today to ensure we're making effective change when it comes to carbon offsets?

(14:00):
So I would say forget about the carbon offsets. They are not where the action is really happening. The most important is that we need political and economic change, and fundamental change to achieve the reductions we need to achieve. We need to achieve if we want to keep civilizations going the way we have them right now, if there is any meaningful action you can do, I would say there are two things. One is to be active on a political level, be that by actively participating in demonstrations, in political lobbying, in writing letters, in encouraging all your friends and all your relatives to vote for the right people, or be it donating to organizations or political parties, you know, want to do the right thing, or are lobbying for the right thing or politicians who are trying to do the right thing. And the other thing I would say is how you manage your money, where you have your money invested, what bank you are using, and then also what companies you purchase from ensuring that they are as sustainable as possible and that they are also investing their money as sustainably as possible.

(15:32):
The financial sector has huge leverage. So anyway, you can impact the financial sector by moving your investments by lobbying for more sustainable investments in your retirement funds. So this is super important to do. One thing I haven't mentioned is lawsuits. So that's another branch of our democracy where we actually can make an impact. I'm using an example from Switzerland where the association of grant grandmothers for the climate has brought a lawsuit against Switzerland because they said their livelihoods are not sufficiently protected or their life in general, not their livelihoods - they're retired - but their quality of life is not protected. And this lawsuit actually was thrown out by the highest court in Switzerland and then was brought to the European court of human rights. And there, it was just elevated to the grant chamber. So that's, this is the chamber that only gets used for very significant lawsuits.

(16:45):
It turns out that this group of grandmothers concerned grandmothers now is bringing one of the most important lawsuits there are in, in Europe to the European court of human rights. So really the judicial branch is also a super important branch. You can look into either by getting actively involved or by supporting organizations that are already involved in lawsuits. And there are thousands of lawsuits happening all over the world. So this is another way to get involved. I would say, talk about climate change with people. I know this is not always comfortable. I know people like to stay in their comfortable lives. I do too. So engaging people in conversation, letting people know about your feelings and about what you know. And so what the climate crisis means for all of us is super, you know, it's still such a political issue. This is something that needs time. This is something that needs trust, but it's something that we all need to do because we all need to come on board with this. It's such a huge crisis. And if we are not all on board, it's gonna stay really, really difficult to make any kind of difference and really to ensure a livable future. For many, many of us,

(18:20):
I feel much more educated about carbon offsets and how I can effectively reduce my footprint. So thanks so much for coming on the show.

(18:27):
Thanks Michael, for having me. And I hope I also motivated people and made people excited to get involved because really there's no other option. And it often actually is quite exciting. And it's also an antidote against feeling hopeless. It's one of the best antidotes - getting involved and doing something. So I'm looking forward to meeting you all somewhere at some climate event or climate demonstration or something else.

(18:58):
Well, that was my conversation with Anja. I think my biggest takeaway was that let's just forget about carbon offsets. Let's find other more effective ways to reduce our footprint and address the climate crisis. And don't forget to check out the website, www.inovermyheadpodcast.com. There's other shows I've been on plus pictures of the tiny house. So that's fun. Well, that's all for me. I'm Michael Bartz, here's the feeling a little less in over our head when it comes to saving the planet. We'll see you again. Soon you over my head was produced and hosted by Michael Bartz original theme song by Gabriel Thaine. If you would like to get in touch with us, email info@inovermyheadpodcast.com. Special thanks to Telus STORYHIVE for making this show possible.

(19:43):
I'm trying to save the planet. Oh, will someone please save me?