Are Flight Offsets Worth It? A lot of them don’t work and some might even be harmful. But there are things you can do if you really have to fly.
Are Flight Offsets Worth It?
EPA recently updated the "Social Cost of Carbon" which is an estimate of the dollar amount of damage each metric ton of CO2 emitted costs society from pollution, natural disasters, humanitarian issues, etc. In 2023 the cost was ~$204/metric ton. A flight across the Continental US emits about 1 metric ton per economy passenger.
So carbon offsets should be priced in the neighborhood of $200/metric ton. But many of the carbon offset services are pretty scammy or fraudulent. As an alternative, I'd suggest considering a simple donation to an environmental charity in the same dollar range. Check out Coalition for Rainforest Nations as an option!
Thanks for referencing and linking the Social Cost of Carbon info. That's a good way to look at this issue.
You may want to read that link, not sure I'd be thanking anyone for sharing that particular primer on the Social Cost of Carbon.
"Social Cost of Carbon"
YIKES, that's probably not the article I would reference when trying to introduce people to the social cost of carbon - it's full on fossil fuel industry propaganda, you may want to give it a read.
Also, the $200/t is an estimate of the societal cost of emitting carbon, not the cost of avoiding or removing carbon. There's plenty of ways avoidance/offsets/removal programs that can decrease global emissions for a fraction of that price - it just sets the upper end of what is (for better or worse) a "good deal" for the economy. I.e., if it costs more than $200/t to avoid emitting, it's better for the economy to just let the planet burn.
Agreed that today's carbon "offsets" are cheap because they're garbage, and good offsets are and should be more expensive, but they don't have to be $200/ton to be effective, they just have to be under that much in order to be better than dealing with their consequences.
Oh wow, thanks for pointing that out, an oversight on my part. I replaced the link, but damn it's hard to find good sources about this. EPA website is very technical and not much I could find breaking it down well that was not industry-funded.
And yeah there's other ways to look at spending money to offset emissions that are hard to reduce, like air travel. I figure this gets people thinking in different ways and these charities could use the funds.
No mention of direct capture - they should be able to give an accurate capture amount right?