Greenwashing or a net zero necessity? Climate scientists on carbon offsetting

Carbon offsets can help achieve emissions goals, some experts argue, while others say they are actively dangerous

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To offset or not to offset? We asked three prominent climate scientists what they think of the murky world of offsetting.

Johan Rockström, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and chief scientist at Conservation International, which manages a number of carbon offsetting projects, says that offsetting can be valuable but only if companies are already cutting their carbon emissions by at least half each decade, from now to reaching net zero in 2050. They can buy offsets as an additional effort, beyond those reductions, but the offsets cannot be used as a substitute for those stringent emission-reduction requirements.