Elton John and the inconvenient truth about carbon offsetting

Elton John did his royal pals Harry and Meghan few favours when he revealed he’d bought carbon offsets for the couple’s recent trip to Nice in Sir Elton’s private jet. It was also a mistake. ‘Offsetting is worse than doing nothing,’ according to Manchester university professor Kevin Anderson, one of the vanishingly small number of people in the climate world who actually walks the climate talk. ‘It is without scientific legitimacy, is dangerously misleading and almost certainly contributes to a net increase in the absolute rate of global emissions growth.’

Offsetting Harry and Meghan’s emissions must demonstrate ‘with a reasonable level of certainty’ that their flight emissions – plus any emissions consequences from the offsets – adds up to zero over a 100-year period. ‘It is the immutable impossibility of making such long-term assurances that fundamentally challenges the value of such a claim,’ Anderson has argued.

Anderson’s argument against offsets finds empirical support in a May 2019 ProPublica feature by environmental journalist Lisa Song which shreds them of all vestiges of credibility.