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Many real-world agents recognise that they impose harms by choosing to emit carbon, for example, by flying. Yet many do so anyway, and then attempt to make things right by offsetting those harms. Such offsetters typically believe that, by offsetting, they change the deontic status of their behaviour, making an otherwise impermissible action permissible. Do they succeed in practice? Some philosophers have argued that they do, since their offsets appear to reverse the adverse effects of their emissions. But we show that they do not. In practice, standard carbon offsetting does not reverse the harms of the original action, nor does it even benefit the same group as was harmed. Standard moral theories hence deny that such offsetting succeeds. Indeed, we show that any moral theory that allows offsetting in this setting faces a dilemma between allowing any wrong to be offset, no matter how grievous, and recognising an implausibly sharp discontinuity between offsettable actions and non-offsettable actions. The most plausible response is to accept that carbon offsetting fails to right our climate wrongs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This focus article traces the evolution of the voluntary carbon market (VCM), putting emphasis on the more recent developments following the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015. It focuses on the interplay between the privately governed VCM and the global climate regime under the United Nations (UN). For years, the VCM and the UN carbon market operated in parallel and mutually influenced each other. The adoption of the Paris Agreement, however, marked a turning point for the VCM. It triggered the proliferation of net zero targets, sparking the interest in the VCM as a supplier of carbon credits to offset companies' remaining emissions. At the same time, the global scope and ambitious targets set by the agreement have put the future of the VCM in limbo, raising concerns about double claiming and more generally, questioning the adequacy of offsetting. Considering these challenges, numerous stakeholders have started a process to redefine the rules of the market to ensure its credibility and legitimacy. While some areas of convergence were identified, the VCM's private governance has long been unable to address the question of how to deal with double claiming and the claims companies should be allowed to make. In this situation, signals from international policy and regulation under national policy point the way forward for the VCM. By moving from offsetting toward a contribution claim model, the VCM may overcome its "identity crisis" and find a new place within the broader climate change regime. This article is categorized under:The Carbon Economy and Climate Mitigation > Policies, Instruments, Lifestyles, BehaviorPolicy and Governance > Multilevel and Transnational Climate Change GovernancePolicy and Governance > Private Governance of Climate Change [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, under Sect. 404 of the Clean Water Act, requires that development projects that discharge fill to Waters of the United States, including wetlands, must provide compensation through the wetland mitigation process. The Army Corps prefers that compensation is provided through purchase of credits from wetland mitigation banks, which are large wetland restoration projects constructed by third-party bank sponsors for the purpose of selling wetland mitigation credits for a profit. We assessed the regulatory outcomes of banks in the Chicago, USA, region, which possesses one of the country’s most well-developed banking markets. We used data from 22 wetland mitigation banks in the Chicago District of the Army Corps to determine how successful banks were at meeting mandatory ecological performance standards by the end of a required monitoring period. We found that banks typically struggled to meet performance standards limiting dominance by non-native species, although they often met standards related to native species richness and dominance. Perennial plant species richness and floristic quality metrics generally increased during the banks’ five-year monitoring period. The results of this study can serve as a useful resource for the continued adaptation and improvement of performance standards and mitigation assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fish production integrates changes in biomass from growth, reproduction, and mortality, and is a useful indicator for fisheries management. However, calculation of fish production has been limited by the intensive requirements for data on abundance, biomass, age structure, and vital rates, and so it is uncommon to find estimates of fish production for wetlands. We developed an approach to directly estimate production that is suitable for data-limited systems: a continuous time model of production describing individual growth over short time intervals with continuous time models of abundance and biomass over longer timescales. We applied this model for 18 Great Lakes coastal wetlands (GLCWs) on Lake Ontario, including Big Island Wetland (BIW). In BIW, most species were dominated in abundance and biomass by younger cohorts and, as a result, these young, fast-growing individuals contributed disproportionately to fish production. In total, BIW produced 336.1 kg·ha·year of fish and the other 17 neighbouring ranged between 447.7 and 1119.9 kg·ha·year. These are some of the first estimates of fish production for GLCWs, highlighting their value for managing Great Lakes fisheries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions concept is emerging as a fundamental principle for initiatives to address climate change ranging from global to corporate scale. Offsetting emissions using carbon credits features in many sub-global net-zero and carbon-neutrality claims and pledges. Assertions that the use of emission reduction credits (ERCs) is insufficient in the context of offsetting emissions for such claims at sub-global scales are gaining acceptance. Conversely, we show that regardless of whether offsetting is based on the use of ERCs or carbon removal credits (CRCs), the impact on the net transfer of GHG to the atmosphere is the same. Therefore, both ERCs and CRCs are adequate for offsetting with the purpose of achieving net-zero emissions or carbon neutrality. We show that assertions that the use of ERCs is insufficient for offsetting for these purposes are based on an incorrect setting of assessment boundaries and related misconceptions. The results presented in this paper have fundamental implications for what kind of GHG mitigation action beyond entities’ own value chains may be considered adequate in relation to entities’ claims concerning making no contribution to the net accumulation of GHG in the atmosphere, i.e. net-zero and carbon-neutrality claims.

Net-zero has proved a rapid and powerful convening concept for climate policy. Rather than treating it as a novel development from the perspective of climate policy, we examine net-zero in the context of the longer history and experience of the “no-net-loss” framing from biodiversity policy. Drawing on material from scholarly, policy and activist literature and cultural political economy theory, we interpret the turn to “net” policies and practices as part of the political economy of neoliberalism, in which the quantification and commodification of the environment, and in particular—trading through an offset market, enable continued ideological dominance of economic freedoms. This analysis highlights the ways in which the adoption of a “net” framing reconstructs the goals, processes and mechanisms involved. It is the neoliberal commitment to markets that drives the adoption of net framings for the very purpose of validating offsetting markets. Understanding the making of “net” measures in this way highlights the potential to disentangle the “net” from the “offset”, and we discuss the various obfuscations and perversities this entanglement affords. We argue that the delivery of net outcomes might be separated from the mechanism of offsetting, and the marketization of compensation it is typically presumed to involve, but may yet remain entangled in neoliberal political ideology. In conclusion we suggest some conditions for more effective, fair and sustainable delivery of “net-zero” climate policy.

The Environmental Crisis has been creeping up on us for years. Arguably this crisis arises from the abuse of God's creation, particularly from Western overconsumption and our consequently broken relationship with our neighbours worldwide and especially the poor and those in less developed parts of the world who are already suffering most from its consequences. Over the last five decades, prophetic voices have spoken of the dangers of environmental degradation and climate change. It is however only in the last few years that the narrower subject of climate change has become a prominent element of the discourse in the Western Church, though the situation is perhaps rather different in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Many organisations and indeed governments have set targets for Net Zero, but does this represent an appropriate and sufficient response for Churches? Is there a sound basis for such an approach, guided by our faith and theology? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The climate crisis and the alarming loss of biodiversity require urgent action. One of the most popular tools to tackle these crises is offsetting, an accounting logic through which environmental damages can be compensated elsewhere with environmental benefits. Developed to help address the climate crisis, the carbon offsetting logic has also been transposed to address biodiversity loss. Biodiversity offsets permit the compensation of residual environmental damages through equivalent gains undertaken elsewhere. This article identifies three arguments that show why such a transposition is problematic. To explain the fundamental problem with biodiversity offsetting, the famous Lessing's "Nathan the Wise" Ring Parable (Ringparabel) is proposed as an allegoric interpretation of the biodiversity offsetting logic, stressing that unique entities lose their uniqueness and power once people try to replicate them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finland adopted the "green mining" concept to reconcile an increase in mineral extraction with conservation needs. Ongoing academic discussions call attention to the social and political factors supporting or challenging new mining projects in the Global North. Particularly understudied are the struggles over existence and knowledge that emerge during environmental accountability processes. This paper is an ethnographic investigation into the onto-epistemological conflict involving the Anglo American Sakatti mine project in the protected Viiankiaapa mire of the Finnish Arctic. It uses material from interviews and stakeholder meetings to analyze how the company's environmental impact assessment is being challenged and how people affected by mining are articulating their claims against the extractive ontology of replaceability. The findings, with parallels drawn to the Global South, suggest that green mine projects become ontologically conflicted and reveal their inherent fragility when companies increasingly try to minimize impacts and legitimate inevitable harm through offsetting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research is devoted to the analysis of tourists' preferences for climate change (CC) mitigation policies in the Mallorca region. The stated choice experiment, used for evaluation, was designed combining a set of alternatives, characterised by carbon footprint reduction and offset policies, taking into account the existence of environmental direct benefits, but also indirect benefits that improve tourist experience or co-benefits derived from the location of policy projects. Economic welfare in form of willingness to pay (WTP) was estimated, and the alternatives were compared using compensating variation values. The study's findings validate the prevailing preference for carbon reduction policies over offsetting measures, except when the first don't have co-benefits and the latter are implemented locally. In the latter case, there is no significant difference in WTP between reducing the carbon footprint and locally offsetting it. Results not only contributes to the ongoing economic debate surrounding CC mitigation policies but also provides key information for designing mitigation schemes in diffuse emission sectors such as tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Societal Impact Statement: Humankind is facing both climate and biodiversity crises. This article proposes the foundations of a scheme that offers tradable credits for combined aboveground and soil carbon and biodiversity. Multidiversity—as estimated based on high‐throughput molecular identification of soil meiofauna, fungi, bacteria, protists, plants and other organisms shedding DNA into soil, complemented by acoustic and video analyses of aboveground macrobiota—offers a cost‐effective method that captures much of the terrestrial biodiversity. Such a voluntary crediting system would increase the quality of carbon projects and contribute funding for delivering the Kunming‐Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Summary: Carbon crediting and land offsets for biodiversity protection have been developed to tackle the challenges of increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the loss of global biodiversity. Unfortunately, these two mechanisms are not optimal when considered separately. Focusing solely on carbon capture—the primary goal of most carbon‐focused crediting and offsetting commitments—often results in the establishment of non‐native, fast‐growing monocultures that negatively affect biodiversity and soil‐related ecosystem services. Soil contributes a vast proportion of global biodiversity and contains traces of aboveground organisms. Here, we outline a carbon and biodiversity co‐crediting scheme based on the multi‐kingdom molecular and carbon analyses of soil samples, along with remote sensing estimation of aboveground carbon as well as video and acoustic analyses‐based monitoring of aboveground macroorganisms. Combined, such a co‐crediting scheme could help halt biodiversity loss by incentivising industry and governments to account for biodiversity in carbon sequestration projects more rigorously, explicitly and equitably than they currently do. In most cases, this would help prioritise protection before restoration and help promote more socially and environmentally sustainable land stewardship towards a 'nature positive' future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mitigation banking is part of the ever-expanding global environmental market framework that aims to balance negative approved anthropogenic impacts versus third-party provided ecosystem benefits, sold in the form of credits. Given the need to conserve freshwater biodiversity and habitat, banking has received great traction for freshwater species and systems. While extensive reviews and studies have been conducted on evaluating if equivalency between impacts and offset can be achieved, there is almost no research being done on the way credits are being generated and banks are managed to inform future best practice and policy. Synthesizing banking data through cluster analyzes from 26 banks in the United States generating credits for freshwater species and associated systems, we show two generalizable approaches: removing barriers and targeting whole communities. Both address crucial freshwater conservation needs but come with their risks and caveats. Using common characteristics and management practices founded in federal and district level guidance within these two groups, we showcase and conclude that credit generation via barrier removal can be at risk of granting credit generation for too large of an area, leading to over-crediting. Banks targeting whole freshwater communities and accounting for landscape-level interactions and influences can potentially be detrimental for species on an individual level and large-scale credit availability as well as transfer can incentivize non-compliance with the mitigation hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses the issue of prison overcrowding and how it can be tantamount to ill-treatment or torture under international law. Faced with such a broad phenomenon, the piece focuses on two elements that may help to assess this circumstance: the existence of a minimum standard with respect to living space, and the use of tools to establish the existence of harm caused by inhuman conditions of incarceration. The article will show novel jurisprudence of some Courts to secure reparation for victims (early release and reduction of sentence time as offsetting) and will address discussion on the scope and limitations of these decisions with the aim of proposing even more courageous measures to ensure group and generalised reparation measures to reduce the rates of structural institutional violence in prisons.

Abstract Adapting to and mitigating against climate change requires the protection and expansion of natural carbon sinks, especially ecosystems with exceptional carbon density such as mangrove forests (an example of ‘blue carbon’). Projects that do this are called ‘nature‐based solutions’ (NbS). International norms regulating NbS stipulate the importance of justice, in contrast with some of the history and practice in wider conservation. However, what justice means and how it manifests in practice remain contentious. Selling carbon credits on the voluntary market is a growing source of funding for NbS. A large literature examines the ethics, economics, science and politics of such payments for ecosystem services (PES), including for blue carbon. The interpretations of justice in this context are particularly contentious, but operational blue carbon projects have not been examined from a justice perspective. Here we report on a case study involving the first blue carbon project, Mikoko Pamoja, and its sister project Vanga Blue Forest, both based in Kenya. We consider how justice is conceived by local participants and beneficiaries, using interviews, focus groups and participant observation to collect data, as well as by international stakeholders and in relevant governing documents and policy. We compare these perceptions with expectations and critiques derived a priori from the literature, including a classic thought experiment that influential justice philosopher John Rawls called the ‘original position’. In contrast to high‐level policy and much of the literature, but in common with Rawls, local stakeholders emphasised distributional aspects of justice. Locally situated interpretations of contentious issues such as elite capture and commodification differed markedly from common interpretations in the literature. Our work emphasises the importance of situating abstract concepts in their local contexts when evaluating justice in NbS projects. It shows how narratives advocating technical precision and economic efficiency in NbS can militate against transparency and agency at a local level and emphasises the critical importance of benefit sharing that is perceived to be fair. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

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Abstract Grasslands (natural, semi-natural and improved) occupy approximately one-third of the terrestrial biosphere and are key for global ecosystem service provision, storing up to 30% of soil organic carbon (SOC). To date, most research on soil carbon (C) sequestration has focused on croplands where the levels of native soil organic matter (SOM) are typically low and significant potential exists to replenish SOM stocks. However, with the renewed push to achieve “net zero” C emissions by 2050, grasslands may offer an additional C store, utilising tools such as biochar. Here, we critically evaluate the potential for biochar as a technology for increasing grassland C stocks, identifying a number of practical, economic, social and legislative challenges that need to be addressed before the widescale adoption of biochar may be achieved. We critically assess the current knowledge within the field of grassland biochar research in the context of ecosystem service provision and provide opinions on the applicability of biochar as an amendment to different types of grassland (improved, semi-improved and unimproved) and the potential effect on ecosystem provision using a range of application techniques in the topsoil and subsoil. We concluded that the key question remains, is it possible for managed grasslands to store more C, without causing a loss in additional ecosystem services? To address this question future research must take a more multidisciplinary and holistic approach when evaluating the potential role of biochar at sequestering C in grasslands to mitigate climate change. Graphical Abstract

From Big Tech to Oil Majors, companies are increasingly resorting to the voluntary purchase of carbon credits to offset their greenhouse gas emissions and make claims about their carbon neutrality. Yet, the credibility of offsetting as a solution to climate change remains contested. From the outset, that is, since the mid-2000s, the voluntary carbon markets have been criticised, as we discuss in this commentary, which stems from our long-standing interest in the social study of carbon markets. Drawing on interviews conducted with offset suppliers and buyers, we examine some of the ways in which the issue of quality (or the lack of) has come to be a central concern in the voluntary offsetting markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Carbon offsetting is one of the tools that companies can use to achieve their climate targets. The ability of a company to offset its emissions successfully depends on the availability and quality of guidance on the subject. This study explores how well existing offsetting guidelines equip corporations to achieve successful emissions offsetting. Methods: Instructional criteria were developed and used to evaluate seven guidelines. The contents of each guideline were assessed based on how they instruct a company to achieve emissions offsetting that fulfills five criteria for appropriate offsetting: target affiliation, Paris compatibility, effectiveness, prioritizing removals, and transparency. Results and discussion: The review revealed that necessary instructions enabling appropriate emissions offsetting were absent in the guidelines. Moreover, the degree of climate ambition and the role of offsetting varied between guidelines. Deficiencies in emissions offsetting guidance may increase the uncertainty of companies' succeeding in offsetting their emissions. Conclusions: Developing guidance on emissions offsetting could benefit society and corporations by increasing the certainty of achieving successful emissions offsetting. Standardizing corporate emissions offsetting could be considered as one solution for unifying the practice. The practical life-cycle implications of current ambiguity in guidelines are a direction for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grasslands (natural, semi-natural and improved) occupy approximately one-third of the terrestrial biosphere and are key for global ecosystem service provision, storing up to 30% of soil organic carbon (SOC). To date, most research on soil carbon (C) sequestration has focused on croplands where the levels of native soil organic matter (SOM) are typically low and significant potential exists to replenish SOM stocks. However, with the renewed push to achieve "net zero" C emissions by 2050, grasslands may offer an additional C store, utilising tools such as biochar. Here, we critically evaluate the potential for biochar as a technology for increasing grassland C stocks, identifying a number of practical, economic, social and legislative challenges that need to be addressed before the widescale adoption of biochar may be achieved. We critically assess the current knowledge within the field of grassland biochar research in the context of ecosystem service provision and provide opinions on the applicability of biochar as an amendment to different types of grassland (improved, semi-improved and unimproved) and the potential effect on ecosystem provision using a range of application techniques in the topsoil and subsoil. We concluded that the key question remains, is it possible for managed grasslands to store more C, without causing a loss in additional ecosystem services? To address this question future research must take a more multidisciplinary and holistic approach when evaluating the potential role of biochar at sequestering C in grasslands to mitigate climate change. Highlights: Carbon (C) rich grassland soils may offer an additional C store, utilising tools such as biochar Identification of practical, economic, social and legislative challenges for scaled adoption of biochar in grasslands Key question: will enhanced C storage in grasslands soils cause a loss in additional ecosystem services? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Primary Care Incentive Payment Program (PCIP) provided a 10% bonus payment for Evaluation and Management (E&M) visits for eligible primary care providers (PCPs) from 2011 to 2015. Using a 2012 to 2017 sample of continuously eligible PCPs (the treatment group) and ineligible specialists with historically similar provision of billed services (the control group), this study is the first to examine how PCPs responded to the program's termination. Using inverse probability of treatment weighted difference-in-differences models that control for inter-temporal changes in provider-specific beneficiary characteristics, individual provider fixed effects, and zip code by year fixed effects, it finds that providers responded to the removal of the 10% bonus payments by increasing their billing of bonus payment eligible E&M relative value units (RVUs) by 3.7%. This response is consistent with supplier-induced demand and suggests a 46% offsetting response consistent with actuarial assumptions by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services when assessing reimbursement reductions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many governments are failing to act sufficiently strongly on climate change. Given this, what should motivated affluent individuals in high-consumption societies do? This paper argues that social norms are a particularly valuable target for individual climate action. Within norm-promotion, the paper makes the case for a focus on anti-fossil fuel norms specifically. Section 1 outlines gaps in the existing literature on individuals' climate change obligations. Section 2 characterises social norms. Section 3 provides seven reasons why social norms are a particularly worthy target for individual climate actors. Section 4 asks which social norms individuals should emphasise, arguing that anti-fossil fuel norms have advantages over emissions reduction and offsetting norms. Section 5 outlines the pathways and mechanisms individuals might exploit to promote anti-fossil fuel norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Net-zero has proved a rapid and powerful convening concept for climate policy. Rather than treating it as a novel development from the perspective of climate policy, we examine net-zero in the context of the longer history and experience of the “no-net-loss” framing from biodiversity policy. Drawing on material from scholarly, policy and activist literature and cultural political economy theory, we interpret the turn to “net” policies and practices as part of the political economy of neoliberalism, in which the quantification and commodification of the environment, and in particular—trading through an offset market, enable continued ideological dominance of economic freedoms. This analysis highlights the ways in which the adoption of a “net” framing reconstructs the goals, processes and mechanisms involved. It is the neoliberal commitment to markets that drives the adoption of net framings for the very purpose of validating offsetting markets. Understanding the making of “net” measures in this way highlights the potential to disentangle the “net” from the “offset”, and we discuss the various obfuscations and perversities this entanglement affords. We argue that the delivery of net outcomes might be separated from the mechanism of offsetting, and the marketization of compensation it is typically presumed to involve, but may yet remain entangled in neoliberal political ideology. In conclusion we suggest some conditions for more effective, fair and sustainable delivery of “net-zero” climate policy.

In response to a crisis, policymakers face the decision of whether to enumerate specific actions the public must do or, instead, to aim at an overall outcome while leaving room open for choice. This essay evaluates the merits and demerits of crisis response that leaves room open for choice, with a particular focus on pandemic response. I evaluate two approaches: trades and offsets. Trades allow individuals or groups to exchange protection against harm or entitlement to engage in risky activity. Offsets allow the same actors to pay to mitigate the effects of decisions that increase risk for others. Choice-friendly approaches can free people to better align their actions with their values, harness local knowledge for better social outcomes, and act as natural experiments. However, they also are subject to objections, including negative externalities, agency problems, exploitation, and exacerbating inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses options to increase mitigation ambition in crediting mechanisms that serve the Paris Agreement (PA), such as the Article 6.4 mechanism. Under the Clean Development Mechanism and other crediting mechanisms, baselines have been specified in the form of greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity factors and linked to business-as-usual developments. This means that with increasing production of goods and services through carbon market activities, absolute emissions may increase or fall only slowly. At a global level, such an approach widens the 'emissions gap'. To enable continued use of emissions intensity baselines in crediting mechanisms while being in line with the PA's goal to pursue efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C, we propose to apply an 'ambition coefficient' to emissions intensities of technologies when establishing the baseline. This coefficient would decrease to reflect increasing ambition over time, and reach zero when a country needs to reach net zero emissions. Due to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, the coefficient would fall more quickly for developed than for developing countries. The latter would be able to generate emission reduction credits well beyond 2050, while for the former, crediting would stop around 2035 or before. An ambition coefficient approach would generate certainty for carbon market investors and preserve trust in international carbon markets that operate in line with the agreed, long-term ambition of the international climate regime. An ambition coefficient can help to align carbon market activities with net zero GHG emission pathways at country level, and ensure that carbon markets will not lead to a lock-in of emissions in participating countries. The ambition coefficient approach can serve as a 'bridging proposal' for the operationalization of PA carbon markets. It may resolve negotiation gridlock between those who want to increase stringency in carbon market instruments and those who think mitigation ambition should be generated through more stringent NDCs, facilitated by cost savings and increased financial resources generated by international carbon markets. The use of an ambition coefficient can enable the alignment of existing methodologies with necessary ambition levels to implement the PA, while also keeping transaction costs low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the feasibility of CORSIA's carbon neutral growth goal based on verified carbon offsetting. It is motivated by an ongoing general debate about the climate and regulatory integrity of carbon offsetting, thus systematically identifying critical carbon offset characteristics. Using registry data from the largest carbon offset verifiers eligible under CORSIA, we show that the majority of carbon offsets have minor climate integrity. This challenges CORSIA's neutral growth objective. However, unconditional offset price differentials are only weak signals for climate integrity. To increase environmental effectiveness, a narrower scope of eligibility rules is necessary in order to ensure maximum compliance of projects and strengthen the necessary price effect of carbon offsets. However, it is highly questionable whether there is enough potential supply of offsets to ensure such high integrity, indicating that carbon offsetting should be considered as a transitory measure only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid decarbonisation is required to mitigate climate change. An overdependence on land-based carbon capture threatens food production, indigenous and local rights, biodiversity, and climate overshoot. Accurate emissions estimates are important for tracking progress towards net zero goals and efficiently determining land requirements to balance un-avoided emissions. Here we examine spatiotemporal greenhouse gas profiles of Australia's national beef cattle and sheep production including the primary categories allocated by the Australian red meat industry. We assess performance at finer regional disaggregation and incorporate spatially referenced forest carbon cycling. The capacity of National Greenhouse Inventory estimates to represent mitigation progress is explored, and limitations of land-based offset pathways are discussed. We combine emission accounting methods with biophysical models to quantify spatially explicit trends in emissions accounts. Annual estimates are produced from 2011 to 2020 across 46 regions representing >99.5 % of Australia's beef cattle and sheep production. We reveal net emissions have reduced from 158 Mt. CO 2 -e in 2011 to 50 Mt. CO 2 -e in 2020. Reductions are associated with declining forest loss whereas other direct sources such as enteric methane are relatively stable and reflect animal numbers rather than practice change. Our results highlight the power of regionally disaggregated emissions assessments by novelly revealing 12 grazing regions have surpassed net zero accounts in 2020. The scale of forest emission flux suggests strategic forest source-sink shifts have the potential to offset interim beef cattle and sheep emissions. However, access to forest offsets are likely to become competitive and the extent to which net zero objectives can draw on afforestation pathways will be limited by social, environmental and economic constraints. Medium to long-term achievement and maintenance of net zero emission profiles will require progress to be made in reducing direct greenhouse gas emissions. Our spatially explicit methods and investigation of National Greenhouse Inventory inputs indicate greater accuracy in industry estimates may be achieved. We recommend direct emission avoidance pathways including halted deforestation and enteric methane avoidance are prioritised rather than relying on offsets to balance accounts. Our assessment informs the beef cattle and sheep industries and relevant government organisations of method advancement opportunities to improve the accuracy of national emission estimates, track progress towards net zero commitments and promote efficiency in land-based carbon capture and storage requirements. [Display omitted] • Accurate greenhouse gas estimates will support tracking of progress towards net zero targets and promote land use change efficiency. • Reduced forest loss underpins reductions in Australia's beef cattle and sheep greenhouse accounts whilst other sources are relatively stable. • Beef cattle and sheep greenhouse profiles depending on National Inventory inputs may not reflect mitigation advancements if factors are out of date. • Spatially explicit and regionally disaggregated greenhouse accounts highlight where regions perform as emission hotspots or net carbon sinks. • Sustainable beef cattle and sheep decarbonisation needs to prioritise direct emission avoidance including halted deforestation and enteric methane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conservation and mitigation banks allow their proponents to buy credits to offset the negative residual impacts of their development projects with the goal of no net loss (NNL) in the ecosystem function and habitat area. However, little is known about the extent to which these bank transactions achieve NNL. We synthesized and reviewed 12,756 transactions in the United States which were related to meeting area and ecological equivalence (n = 4331) between the approved negative impact and offset. While most of these transactions provided an offset that was equal to or greater than the impacted area, approximately one quarter of the transactions, especially those targeting wetlands, did not meet ecological equivalence between the impact and offset. This missing ecological equivalence was often due to the significantly increasing use of preservation, enhancement, and rehabilitation over creating new ecosystems through establishment and re-establishment. Stream transactions seldom added new ecosystem area through creation but mainly used rehabilitation in order to add offset benefits, in many cases leading to a net loss of area. Our results suggest that best practice guidance on habitat creation as well as the incentivization of habitat creation must increase in the future to avoid net loss through bank transactions and to meet the ever-accelerating global changes in land use and the increased pressure of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key aspect of contemporary fish habitat management is the need to account for losses and gains associated with development and offsetting measures while protecting high quality features. We propose an ecological accounting framework for aquatic ecosystems using habitat equivalents scaled to aquatic productivity, and using fish-to-habitat associations by life stage, based on local fish community needs. The framework uses both landscape-scale and site-level evaluations of pre- and post-project habitat changes to assign and track habitat parcels, using ecological baselines and fish-habitat target setting. Concepts of natural capital reserves and productivity-based ecotypes are used for trading losses and gains between impacts from development projects and offsets, including restoration actions, while maintaining ecologically important areas intact. Traditional accounting terms such as deposits, withdrawals, and transfers are defined using scaled habitat-equivalents as the currency. Other key features of the framework include setting a service area that is ecologically meaningful, and conducting habitat transactions guided by habitat conservation, protection, and restoration (habitat CPR) principles. The nearshore area of the Toronto and Region is used as a case study to illustrate the eco-accounting framework and how habitat banking could be incorporated along with planned restoration to remediate this degraded but continually developed area. The framework represents significant advances in managing cumulative habitat effects in an integrated way, moving away from a focus on only project- or site-level assessments. We feel this approach could be adapted to other ecosystem types in addition to the lake, nearshore area example provided here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written about climate change from an ethical view in general, but less has been written about it from a libertarian point of view in particular. In this paper, I apply the libertarian moral theory to the problem of climate change. I focus on libertarianism's implications for our individual emissions. I argue that (i) even if our individual emissions cause no harm to others, these emissions cross other people's boundaries, (ii) although the boundary-crossings that are due to our 'subsistence emissions' are implicitly consented to by others, there is no such consent to our 'non-subsistence emissions', and (iii) there is no independent justification for these emissions. Although offsetting would provide such a justification, most emitters do not offset their non-subsistence emissions. Therefore, these emissions violate people's rights, which means that they are impermissible according to libertarianism's non-aggression principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data on office visits for Medicare-treating physicians, this study examines the effects of several policy changes that reduced real reimbursement for some, but not all physicians, from 2012 to 2017. Using genetic propensity score weighted Difference-in-Differences (DID) models that include individual physician and county fixed-effects, this study finds strong evidence that those who experienced a reimbursement reduction increased their service provision, indicative of a supplier-induced demand response. Our estimates imply that 27–33% of a reimbursement reduction will be offset through changes in provider behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the one hand, a large number of companies have committed to achieve net zero emissions and many of them foresee to offset some remaining emissions with carbon credits, suggesting a surge of future demand. Yet, the supply side of the voluntary carbon market is struggling to align its business model with the new legal architecture of the Paris Agreement. This article juxtaposes these two perspectives. It provides an overview of the plans of 482 major companies with some form of neutrality/net zero pledge and traces the struggle on the supply side of the voluntary carbon market to come up with a viable business model that ensures environmental integrity and contributes to achieving the objectives of the Paris Agreement. Our analysis finds that if carbon credits are used to offset remaining emissions against neutrality objectives, these credits need to be accounted against the host countries' Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to ensure environmental integrity. Yet, operationalizing this approach is challenging and will require innovative solutions and political support. Key policy insights There is a growing mismatch between the faith placed in carbon credits by private sector companies and the continued quest for a common position of the main suppliers of the voluntary carbon market. The voluntary carbon market has not yet found a way to align itself with the new legal architecture of the Paris Agreement in a credible and legitimate way. Public policy support at the national and international level will be needed to operationalize a robust approach for the market's future activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the feasibility of CORSIA’s carbon neutral growth goal based on verified carbon offsetting. It is motivated by an ongoing general debate about the climate and regulatory integrity of carbon offsetting, thus systematically identifying critical carbon offset characteristics. Using registry data from the largest carbon offset verifiers eligible under CORSIA, we show that the majority of carbon offsets have minor climate integrity. This challenges CORSIA’s neutral growth objective. However, unconditional offset price differentials are only weak signals for climate integrity. To increase environmental effectiveness, a narrower scope of eligibility rules is necessary in order to ensure maximum compliance of projects and strengthen the necessary price effect of carbon offsets. However, it is highly questionable whether there is enough potential supply of offsets to ensure such high integrity, indicating that carbon offsetting should be considered as a transitory measure only.

The past decade has been a dynamic one for biodiversity offsetting policy. Efforts to incorporate offsetting into the Convention on Biological Diversity as a compliance mechanism did not succeed. The expansion of offsetting outside of the Natura 2000 network in the European Union (EU), which looked all but inevitable in the early 2010s, was withdrawn in the face of unexpectedly strong opposition from environmental groups and the business sector. Highly publicised offsetting programmes in some EU countries have had mixed outcomes, and many observers describe offsetting as a failed policy. And yet four years of interviews and policy analysis in Brussels, Spain, and England suggest that reports of offsetting's death may be exaggerated. While the possibility of an overarching EU Directive aimed at harmonising offsetting policy and practice across the region's countries seems unlikely, in Spain, offsetting has returned to the national policy arena via adoption as an implementation tool within the national Green Infrastructure Strategy. Offsetting in England persists in a handful of counties as a locally situated development strategy, and seems to have returned at the national level despite its spectacular flame‐out in 2014. This is not, after all, a high‐profile failure of neoliberal environmental policy. Rather, we see offsetting's persistence as a result of policy refugia: the retreat to small but amenable jurisdictions where offsetting policies can wait out inclement policy conditions and then emerge to recolonise the policy landscape when conditions improve. Highly publicised offsetting programmes in some EU countries have had mixed outcomes, and many observers describe offsetting as a failed policy. However, our analysis of offset policy development in the EU, Spain, and England suggests that offsetting has not failed but persists as a result of policy refugia: it has retreated to small but amenable jurisdictions from which it can emerge to recolonise the policy landscape as conditions improve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Kingdom Government intends to require land development in England to contribute to improving biodiversity values. The basis for this, the offsetting of impacts on biodiversity, stems from and reinforces a neoliberal economic approach, fits with the privatising of conservation, and at a landscape level may improve biodiversity values. However, challenging decision-makers is the current lack of robust evidence that offsetting works, meaning allowing development despite uncertain future biodiversity benefits. Additionally, financial support for local government is declining, making it unclear whether and how effective independent auditing of biodiversity net gain will be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiversity offsetting is an increasingly popular policy instrument used to compensate for losses in biodiversity and ecosystem services caused by development projects. Although evidence suggests that offsetting can yield significant environmental benefits, application of the policy instrument is surrounded by controversy. Among other things, critics argue that offsetting builds on normatively contentious assumptions regarding the value of nature and the fungibility of biodiversity components, such as species, habitats, ecosystems, and landscapes. A large portion of the criticism targets the allegedly illegitimate commodification of nature that the policy instrument entails. Exploring the significantly more developed normative discussion on carbon offsetting, this article identifies four arguments that plausibly could be made to support the claim that it is wrong to commodify nature in the way biodiversity offsetting schemes do: the common ownership argument, the price argument, the non‐substitutability argument, and the "crowding out" argument. Although none of the arguments definitively invalidate the use of biodiversity offsets, they provide good reasons to proceed with caution when designing and implementing them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I seek to explore the role of biodiversity offsetting in the evolution of public debates over controversial urban development projects and the way it may influence the outcome of social‐environmental conflicts. By drawing on empirical data obtained through 25 interviews with key stakeholders involved in a conflict around executive housing in North East England, 48 interviews with several stakeholders involved in offsetting across England, and an extensive document analysis, I explore the depoliticising effects of offsetting as an indicative example of actually existing neoliberal conservation. I also pay attention to the way offsetting relates to the fast policy complex to trace the links between neoliberalisation and depoliticisation particularly in the era following the 2008 financial crash. Understanding social‐environmental conflicts through the lens of the post‐political hypothesis can shed light on the way both participatory planning and neoliberal conservation, by favouring technocratic management and consensual policy‐making, attempt to remove contestation and agonistic engagement from the public terrain. On the other hand, seeing conflicts only through the post‐political hypothesis has important limits, primarily because it implies a catholic hegemony of post‐politics that can be both disorienting and paralysing. I conclude by showing through five key propositions the necessity for contextualised readings of historically and geographically specific political practices and for analysing depoliticisation by means of a theory of hegemony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies an emerging faultline in critical geography and political ecology scholarship by reviewing recent debates on three neoliberal environmental governance initiatives: Payments for Ecosystem Services, the United Nations programme for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries and carbon-biodiversity offsetting. These three approaches, we argue, are characterized by varying degrees of contextual and procedural – or superficial – difference, meanwhile exhibiting significant structural similarities that invite critique, perhaps even rejection. Specifically, we identify three largely neglected 'social engineering' outcomes as more foundational to Payments for Ecosystem Services, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries and carbon-biodiversity offsetting than often acknowledged, suggesting that neoliberal environmental governance approaches warrant greater critical attention for their contributions to advancing processes of colonization, state territorialization and security policy. Examining the structural accumulation strategies accompanying neoliberal environmental governance approaches, we offer the term 'accumulation-by-alienation' to highlight both the objective appropriations accompanying Payments for Ecosystem Services, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries and offsetting and the relational deficiencies accompanying the various commodifying instrumentalizations at the heart of these initiatives. We concur with David Harvey's recent work proposing that understanding the iterative and consequential connections between objective/material and subjective/psychological dimensions of alienation offers 'one vital key to unlock the door of a progressive politics for the future'. We conclude (with others) by urging critical geography and political ecology scholars to cultivate research directions that affirm more radical alternatives, rather than reinforcing a narrowing focus on how to improve Payments for Ecosystem Services, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries and offsetting in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Offsetting—trading losses in one place for commensurate gains in another—is a tool used to mitigate environmental impacts of development. Biodiversity and carbon are the most widely used targets of offsets; however, other ecosystem services are increasingly traded, introducing new risks to the environment and people. Here, we provide guidance on how to "trade with minimal trade-offs"— i.e. how to offset impacts on biodiversity without negatively affecting ecosystem services and vice versa. We briefly survey the literature on offsetting biodiversity, carbon and other ecosystem services, revealing that each subfield addresses unique issues (often overlooking those raised by others) and rarely assesses potential trade-offs. We discuss key differences between offsets that trade biodiversity and those that trade ecosystem services, conceptualise links between these different targets in an offsetting context and describe three broad approaches to manage potential trade-offs. We conclude by proposing a research agenda to strengthen the outcomes of offsetting policies that are emerging internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose and validate a method to find an implicit representation of a surface placed at a distance h from another implicit surface. With two such surfaces on either side of the original surface, a volumetric shell of predefined thickness can be obtained. The usability of the proposed method is demonstrated through providing solid models of triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) geometries with a predefined constant and variable thickness. The method has an adjustable order of convergence. If applied to surfaces with spatially varying thickness, the convergence order is limited to second order. This accuracy is still substantially higher than the accuracy of any contemporary 3D printer that could benefit from the function as an infill volume for shells with predefined thicknesses.