2015 Conference

Full Presentation Panel

As awareness and concern about climate change has grown over the past decade, carbon offsets are increasingly used as one of a suite of voluntary actions to help mitigate the carbon emitted by individuals, institutions, or events.  There is extensive controversy over offsets, spanning from those that argue that they stimulate carbon reduction projects that otherwise would not occur, to those that maintain that offsets are rarely “additional” and hence not offsets at all.  Still others contend the devil is in the details of each offset program.  The AESS Board has contemplated how to deal with offsets at our conference and this panel will continue this conversation with the AESS community to debate the hard questions associated with offsets and help us ‘walk the walk’ in the future.  This panel will involve academics and practitioners to explore several questions surrounding carbon offsets: Which programs are the best?  By what criteria should we compare them?  Where do offsets fit within the broader landscape of climate change efforts?  Discussion on this panel will help inform future AESS decisions, as well as contribute to a rich, contemporary debate.

Mark Trexler 

Offsets – End or Means? The first carbon offsets now date back more than 25 years. The regulatory global carbon market has collapsed, at least temporarily, but voluntary carbon markets persist. What is their actual role in addressing climate change?  Do they have one, and if so what is it? How can organizations with climate change objectives best utilize offset programs? These questions will be explored within the context of 25 years of accumulated carbon market experience.

Offsets in Practice and Offsets Emergent:  What scientific criteria are used to judge the environmental integrity of offsets?

Aaron Strong

California currently has five adopted “compliance-grade” offset protocols  for use in its cap and trade program under its Global Warming Solutions Act. These are sets of rules that regulate the generation of offset credits, which can be used under the law to cover up to 8% of all emissions in the state, from everything from forest projects to the destruction of coal mine methane. A sixth protocol, which would allow California-based emitters to pay farmers in Arkansas to alter their rice production regime to reduce methane emissions, with emissions reductions estimated using a calibrated process-based biogeochemical model, is currently under consideration for adoption. Based on my participation in a series of public workshops that informed the development of these rules over the last two years, I present a typology of the kinds of scientific information that were used to inform offset development, and what criteria were used to judge the offsets’ integrity and to determine sufficient certainty. Through the example of California’s nascent system, which has sought to right the ills of past markets, but has raised its own issues, I question what the ideal offset system might look like, both scientifically and administratively, and the conditions under which it could be feasible. I also discuss the treatment of ecosystem carbon storage as a form of implicit offset within non-carbon-market environmental governance frameworks, such as environmental impact statements and in response to new EPA power-plant regulations, suggesting that ecosystem carbon storage is increasingly being regarded as a resource that can be drawn upon in the absence of formal market mechanisms, to defray emissions reductions at the source.

Institutional preferences for carbon offsets

Cecilia Danks

Carbon offsets are not a primary step in addressing climate change, but rather a third or fourth step in a comprehensive climate plan that first seeks to reduce direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions.  Some emissions, (e.g. conference air travel) may be hard to reduce in the short term. A number of businesses, institutions and individuals are exploring carbon offsets as one of a suite of ways to help meet their voluntary climate commitment.  Results from studies of institutional preferences for carbon offsets (type of project, location, verification standard and price) are presented with a focus on the special case of universities and colleges.  I will also share the deliberations of the University of Vermont regarding carbon offsets and our approach to developing criteria for offset selection.

Participation in California's forest carbon offset program:  motivations and barriers

Celina Szymanski.  Co-authors:  Tatyana Ruseva, Eric Marland, Jason Hoyle, Gregg Marland, Tammy Kowalczyk, and Laurel Bates

Carbon offset credits can be a useful tool in mitigating the effects of climate change. Yet, there are few participants registered in California’s carbon offset trading scheme. Furthermore, some would-be participants begin the process of registration only to cease before being issued credits. This paper uses interview data to examine the barriers participants face in implementing Improved Forest Management projects. The research is informed by entities along different stages of the process: some have registered and then backed out, some are newly registered, and some have been registered for a number of years. The groups face different barriers at different stages in the process.  These problems range from issues of steep up-front cost to institutional problems such as lack of expertise about carbon credits. We conclude by offering suggestions to the Air Resources Board on ways to improve the process and thereby increase participation.