Carbon markets: driving out carbon cowboys

Feeling guilty about the carbon emissions that you caused by attending that London meeting in person rather than by videoconference? Unsure how to make it up to the planet without being taken for a ride by a carbon cowboy?

Part of the trouble with carbon offsets—a way to atone by putting a bit of money into a renewable energy project or perhaps a planted tree—has been that it’s hard to know if that same result would have happened without your money or if someone’s conning you and three other people into paying to plant the same tree.

Buying verifiable carbon offsets will get easier in September,when a new registry system designed by the Voluntary Carbon Standard (www.v-c-s.org) will launch. Bank of New York Mellon, one of three major financial institutions selected, will be the U.S. repository charged with providing “transparency, authenticity and traceability of carbon assets.”