Microsoft’s CEO has announced that the company will be carbon negative by (2030 or 2050 or something). What does this mean?
(Explanation of carbon offsetting.)
One person selling carbon offsets is an Indonesian guy. He and a buddy bought up a load of Indonesian forest and now they charge money not to cut it down.
(Would cutting it down be a problem? Seems to me as long as you replant, and use the timber for construction, or store it, or otherwise make sure the carbon doesn’t get released back in the atmosphere—it would be fine? But then I guess probably an old tree captures more carbon year-on-year than a young one. And also I guess the forest ecosystem is healthier with old trees, and constant replanting would eventually fail?)
Then there’s a middleman. He knows how to make his way in Silicon Valley, he describes himself as offering the Airbnb of carbon offsets. The offset seller lists on the brokerage platform, and companies who want to buy offsets find them there.
There are a few potential problems with this. One is “regulation” but I don’t remember what that means precisely. Another is, how do we know what it’s worth to not cut down a forest? We have to compare to a hypothetical where no one bought the offsets, how much would have been cut down then? We can’t know, but seller provides a number anyway. Comparing to similar forests, a study says that number is noticeably too high. There are ratings available, and this particular project gets either 0⁄5 or 1⁄5 stars.
(I don’t remember if this is brought up in the episode, but I guess also: the person selling the offsets has incentive to encourage more logging in other forests.)
PM interviews someone, I think the broker, about these problems. He seems confident everything is fine. PM is unconvinced. Microsoft does not buy these particular offsets.
Planet Money (7 May 2021): Emission Impossible
Microsoft’s CEO has announced that the company will be carbon negative by (2030 or 2050 or something). What does this mean?
(Explanation of carbon offsetting.)
One person selling carbon offsets is an Indonesian guy. He and a buddy bought up a load of Indonesian forest and now they charge money not to cut it down.
(Would cutting it down be a problem? Seems to me as long as you replant, and use the timber for construction, or store it, or otherwise make sure the carbon doesn’t get released back in the atmosphere—it would be fine? But then I guess probably an old tree captures more carbon year-on-year than a young one. And also I guess the forest ecosystem is healthier with old trees, and constant replanting would eventually fail?)
Then there’s a middleman. He knows how to make his way in Silicon Valley, he describes himself as offering the Airbnb of carbon offsets. The offset seller lists on the brokerage platform, and companies who want to buy offsets find them there.
There are a few potential problems with this. One is “regulation” but I don’t remember what that means precisely. Another is, how do we know what it’s worth to not cut down a forest? We have to compare to a hypothetical where no one bought the offsets, how much would have been cut down then? We can’t know, but seller provides a number anyway. Comparing to similar forests, a study says that number is noticeably too high. There are ratings available, and this particular project gets either 0⁄5 or 1⁄5 stars.
(I don’t remember if this is brought up in the episode, but I guess also: the person selling the offsets has incentive to encourage more logging in other forests.)
PM interviews someone, I think the broker, about these problems. He seems confident everything is fine. PM is unconvinced. Microsoft does not buy these particular offsets.