Having travelled here, there, and everywhere by air for both personal and professional business over the last decade, it took me too long to realise the scale of the climate emergency.

When I did, I looked into climate offsets, but found that they’re hugely problematic, and often a scam. That’s why I’m not flying any more. It’s good to hear Greenpeace’s Executive Director Jennifer Morgan come out so strongly against them, and put pressure back on the fossil fuel industry.

Carbon offsets are allowing the world's biggest polluters to forge ahead with business plans that are threatening global climate goals, the head of Greenpeace International said in an interview.

The model allows polluting companies to offset their emissions by buying credits from projects that reduce or avoid the release of climate-warming CO2 elsewhere, such as mass tree plantings or solar power farms - which could be worth $50 billion by 2030 according to a task force created to scale up the market.

Environmental advocates such as Greenpeace say this is allowing big emitters like oil majors to put off cutting their own emissions and avoid divesting from hydrocarbons, a primary source of greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

“There’s no time for offsets. We are in a climate emergency and we need phasing out of fossil fuels,” Greenpeace’s Executive Director Jennifer Morgan said at the Reuters Impact conference.

She said one issue with planting trees as offsets was that it takes 20 years for trees to grow and offset emissions happening right now. In the interim wildfires could destroy the chance of reductions."

These offsetting schemes … are pure ‘greenwash’ so that the companies, oil companies, can continue to do what they’ve been doing and make a profit," she said.

Source: Greenpeace calls for end to carbon offsets | Reuters