A growing chorus of and are coming to the belated recognition that carbon offsets are not . For example, recent articles entitled “” and “” were published in Bloomberg Today and . Carbon offsets were even “worthless” in . This recent spate of research demonstrating that offsets are likely net negative for the climate would not be surprising to readers of my recent book, . Many environmental programs have stumbled for similar reasons. Next Gen explains why, and more importantly, what we have to do to fix it.

Carbon offsets are a textbook example of an idea that sounds good in theory but does not work in practice. Offsets are built on the hope that companies could pay others to cut carbon emissions that cause climate change and thereby avoid having to cut carbon themselves. The concept combines the key flaws that plague other seemingly great ideas that do not survive in the real world.