Does offsetting really reduce emissions?
Carbon credits, or carbon offsets, represent a reduction or avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions. For example, an offset project could reduce the emissions from cooking on dirty stoves in Sudan. These reductions can be used to offset emissions from other activities, such as driving a car. Without the emissions reduction or carbon offset project, we might be facing for example, three tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year from a car in Europe AND from dirty traditional stoves in Sudan. The car driver can choose to leave the car at home and ride her bike instead. Then we would save three tonnes of CO2 from the car, but the dirty stoves would continue polluting. In an ideal world, we would reduce emissions from both sources, but the poor households simply cannot afford to make the switch. Alternatively, the car driver could pay to replace two dirty stoves in Sudan with a much cleaner variety – this is an offset. Then we would save three tonnes of CO2 from the stoves, but not the car
