Carbon Credits is not Carbon Neutral

Emissions Trading Scheme (or ETS) came out of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which Al Gore championed as US Vice-President. [1]. The concept is simple. If you are producing greenhouse gases, you have a carbon deficit. If you are all green or you are producing green products, you have a credit. An organisation that has a deficit buys carbon credits from someone who has a surplus, to avoid paying fines and taxes. Now it can call itself Green or Carbon-Neutral.

Example

For example, take these fictitious companies -

Green-Cars : produces electric cars using processes that produce a lot of waste and a lot of emissions. It has a credit because it is producing electric cars. Therefore it doesn't matter how much pollution Green-Cars generates, it has a surplus.

Red-Plastics : produces plastics. This is a filthy process and it is producing a non-Green product. It has a carbon deficit. Actually it doesn't matter how efficiently it is producing plastics, it will still be in deficit.

Red-Plastics buys carbon-credits from Green-Cars. Green-Cars gets money and Red-Plastics is now Carbon-Neutral and is now a Green company.

Tesla

Would it surprise you to know that Tesla has made a loss since it started until 2020. Its first year in profit was made by selling its carbon credits ?

Carbon Neutral ?

Back to the example. Green-Cars is still producing pollution, it was never really Green anyway. And it hasn't changed any of its practices and it doesn't need to change any of its practices. Red-Plastics is still producing all the horrible pollution and it is producing a non-Green product. But it is now Carbon Neutral.

Yay, we have saved the planet. NOT !!! This is the kind of idiocy that is supposed to save our planet.

Conclusion

Luckily, I believe that the threat may be fictitious, so it doesn't matter much. The zealots are lying so much that I am unable to determine if the crisis is real.