Carbon offsets fail to cut global heating due to ‘intractable’ systemic problems, study says

A wildfire in Yosemite national park, California, US. The research found systemic problems with carbon offsetting schemes such as issuing credits for planting trees that later burn down. Photograph: Stephen Lam/AP

The failure of carbon offsets to cut planet-heating pollution is “not due to a few bad apples”, a review paper has found, but down to deep-seated systemic problems that incremental change will not solve.

Research over two decades has found “intractable” problems that have made carbon credits in most big programmes poor quality, according to the study. While the industry and diplomats have made efforts to improve the system, it found much-awaited rules agreed at a UN climate summit last year “did not substantially address the quality problem”.