The principles of carbon offset Because climate change is a
global issue, preventing emissions of greenhouse gases anywhere
in the world helps tackle the problem. This means that if you
have reached the limit to what you can do in one place, it's
possible to reduce emissions elsewhere and for that action to be
treated as your own. This is known as offsetting. Governments,
international institutions and private companies have devised a
trading system to enable organizations to pay for emission
reductions elsewhere. Using this system, companies can buy
carbon credits to offset some of their unavoidable emissions.
For example, a village in India uses kerosene for light and
cooking. Villagers would really benefit from electricity but
they are miles away from the grid and they can't afford solar
panels. A specialist offset agency pays for the panels and
creates credits for the amount of CO2 saved by avoiding the use
of kerosene. One credit equals one tonne of CO2 avoided. The
agency then sells the credit which is