Carbon offsetting is not warding off environmental collapse – it’s accelerating it

‘Last year, forests being used as corporate offsets were incinerated by the wildfires raging across North America.’ Photograph: Noah Berger/EPA

There is nothing that cannot be corrupted, nothing good that cannot be transformed into something bad. And there is no clearer example than the great climate land grab.

We now know that it’s not enough to leave fossil fuels in the ground and decarbonise our economies. We’ve left it too late. To prevent no more than 1.5C of heating, we also need to draw down some of the carbon already in the atmosphere.