apparently the current market price for a ton of carbon is US$5?
I could buy a few tons of carbon for the price of my meals some days.
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Comments
I dunno either.
Technically, though, I think it's actually a ton of carbon offset. So, it's like, someone planted trees, sequestered a ton of carbon that way, and then sells you the offset, so if you're a business that, say, uses fuel, you can say that you offset some of the CO2 emissions from your vehicles burning that fuel by buying this offset, so you can say that you're not contributing as much to the problem of climate change as you otherwise would be.
So I could buy the offset and, like, not give that to anyone else to use to offset their emissions, or something, I guess. Lol.
I know some environmental groups have been doing this with the US's sulfur dioxide permit program, which functions similarly. They call this "retiring" permits. The "permits" are basically allowances to emit sulfur dioxide, which causes smog and acid rain and stuff; there's only so many permits out there, but companies can trade them amongst themselves.
That said, there isn't quite yet such a restriction on CO2 emissions, so these offsets right now are basically just people trying to get ahead of the curve (in case such restrictions come into being later) or trying to look good. Not that that last thing is necessarily bad; I mean, as long as it's got a beneficial side effect...