Massive wildfires in Oregon and Washington are burning over 90,000 acres of trees set aside for carbon offsets, releasing the carbon the trees were planted or preserved (yes, you read that right - more on this later) to absorb back into the atmosphere. Among others, Microsoft bought a quarter of a million tonnes of carbon removal credits in the region that is now on fire, raising questions about the reliability of nature-based carbon credits. These fires are also shedding light on how carbon stocks stored in nature will be threatened by increasingly frequent and extreme weather events such as droughts and fires, undermining the idea that nature-based offsets can lock away carbon permanently. 

An Amazon Watch report released this month also said that pay-to-pollute tree-planting schemes are “false solutions” to the climate crisis, as the offsets they generate incorrectly treat forests as perpetual sources of carbon storage when they are, in fact, temporary sinks that will re-release carbon over the course of decades or even days in the case of fires (as we are seeing now in the US). Offsets in the Amazon are often developed on land and forest that is occupied by indigenous and tribal peoples, who can be denied access to their ancestral land when it is turned into an NbS scheme. 

Meanwhile, a new study found this month that deforestation in the eastern parts of the Amazon, one of the world’s most important carbon sinks, is causing ecosystem stress, increasing the likelihood of fires and leading to a decrease in photosynthesis - ultimately undermining the area’s ability to act as a carbon sink. Extreme heat will also eat away at the Amazon's carbon sequestration potential, as trees will begin to lose biomass and release carbon as temperatures climb.

But there has also been plenty of encouraging news about NbS. For example, implementing large-scale conservation and restoration of peatlands, saltmarshes and woodlands in the UK alone could unlock £176 billion over the next century, according to a report published this month. Another report, published by Scientific American, suggests focus should move away from purely land-based solutions. Protecting blue carbon (the carbon stores in coastal and marine ecosystems) such as mangroves, salt marshes and seagrass meadows, it says, is a neglected solution for sequestering carbon that can be more effective than planting trees. Marine carbon storage is already generating profit for countries like Australia, Cuba and Indonesia, according to a new Nature Climate Change paper that attempts to put a monetary value on the world’s blue carbon stocks. 

Improving NbS projects also means giving land rights to communities with a track-record of protecting nature. Evidence shows that community forests with legally-recognised rights are healthier and associated with lower deforestation rates, and higher carbon storage and biodiversity compared to other forests, says policy researcher Shruty Agarwal.

Climate experts were disappointed by the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets’ proposed roadmap last week. While the plan did recommend the creation of “high-level” carbon credit labels, it also said that no offsets should be excluded from the market. Experts are worried that without strict definitions for what should count as an offset, the market could be flooded with questionable credits that do not actually sequester carbon. There are concerns that credits won’t be “additional” - in other words, credits will be given to plots of land that would have existed regardless of whether the credit was purchased. Jennifer Morgan, the director of Greenpeace, said the taskforce, launched by former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, is “set to become a safe haven for greenwashers.”

Despite the lack of clear rules or governance structures around the carbon credit market, commodity markets in Singapore and Chicago are trying to solidify offset contracts this month, following the launch of Climate Impact X in June, the Singapore-based global carbon exchange. Several banks from around the world have launched Project Carbon, a pilot carbon exchange designed to help clients manage the risks associated with climate costs and create a more liquid market for carbon offsets. Concerns with carbon offsets have led some to compare them to the medieval Catholic practice of allowing people to pay for indulgences - they allow companies to buy their way out of punishment for their sins. 

A growing chorus of critics are raising concerns about net-zero plans, arguing they are too reliant on future technologies and carbon offsets. MIT Tech review said this month that carbon removal technologies have become a dangerous distraction from emission reduction goals, especially considering no current technologies can be easily scaled up. Direct air capture (DAC), for example, is still prohibitively expensive while bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) - which uses crops as fuel and captures any emissions released when they combust - requires snatching land from other uses, such as growing food. The Guardian also warned of “airy techno-optimism” that allows governments and companies to put off making hard choices. 

Microsoft - which has famously committed to offset the company’s historical emissions by 2030 - acknowledged the limitations of CDR technologies in a white paper it released this month highlighting Microsoft’s carbon removal journey. In the paper, Microsoft called on other entities committed to climate action to help take what it calls an “immature market for negative emissions technologies” and expand it as quickly as possible.