Should I offset my summer holiday flights?

MRCM News / 2019-07-20 / Hits(4533)

Flying off somewhere nice this summer? Now feeling guilty? You wouldn't be alone.

The continuing campaign by teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg to get everyone to reduce their carbon emissions has prompted some soul-searching over when, and whether, it is OK to fly.

In Scandinavia there is even a word for it - "flygskam" - flight shame.

If you don't want to add to the carbon in the atmosphere, you could, like Greta, take the train instead.

But if you are have already booked your fight, or if flying is the only way of getting to your destination, you can instead donate to a carbon offsetting scheme.

These allow individuals and businesses to give money to environmental projects around the world in order to balance out their carbon footprints.

So for example, if you fly from London to New York, you can contribute to a scheme that plants trees, or helps people in an African country get more efficient cooking stoves.

You can either do this via your airline, or pick one of the growing number of stand-alone organisations that run carbon offsetting schemes.

But how do you choose a scheme that has meaningful impact? It is an important question because offsetting is controversial. Some critics have dubbed it a "licence to pollute", arguing that it is likely to ease your conscience and make you happier about booking another flight.

And some offsetting schemes have been criticised in the past for not being effective. Yet despite this criticism, demand for offsetting is soaring.

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