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Carbon offsets aren’t helping the planet — four ways to fix them

Pricing credits according to how much carbon is removed, for how long and how reliably, would direct funding to the most effective climate solutions.
  1. Philip W. Boyd

    1. Philip W. Boyd is a professor at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, and at the Climate Recovery Institute.

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  2. Lennart Bach

    1. Lennart Bach is associate professor at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, and at the Climate Recovery Institute.

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  3. Richard Holden

    1. Richard Holden is a professor in the School of Economics, University of New South Wales Business School, Sydney, Australia, and at the Climate Recovery Institute.

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  4. Christian Turney

    1. Christian Turney is a professor in the Institute for Sustainable Futures, Division of Research, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, Australia, and at the Climate Recovery Institute.

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A close-up of silver pods used for storing carbon dioxide underground in Iceland on a cloudy day

Beneath these pods in Iceland, carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere is being stored underground. Credit: Arnaldur Halldorsson/Bloomberg via Getty

Reaching ‘net zero’ carbon emissions requires doing more than curbing greenhouse-gas emissions. Carbon dioxide must also be withdrawn from the air to compensate for continued releases from sectors in which emissions are hard to abate, such as cement and steel production1,2.

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Nature 620, 947-949 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02649-8

References

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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