Aimee Barnes

Voluntary carbon offsets represent greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) reductions in industries and places not covered by mandatory cap-and-trade schemes or other forms of GHG regulation.

Companies, governments, NGOs, and individuals use voluntary offsets for a variety of reasons: preparing for impending carbon regulation or future carbon costs; to gain experience before developing carbon-related products; to acquire “pre-compliance” offsets that have the potential for future compliance use; and to demonstrate corporate (or individual) social responsibility or create “green” public relations and branding opportunities.

Voluntary offsets...

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As I suspect is true for many people in green business, I often have a tough time responding in just a few sentences to the query: “So, what do you do for work?”

Over the past couple of years, I have refined my explanation -- a bit like an elevator pitch -- to say I work for a company that reduces greenhouse gas emissions through carbon offset projects. If their eyes haven’t completely glazed over by this point, the usual response is something like, “Oh! So you build windmills?”

Explaining to people why we don’t build windmills -- at least not in the U.S. -- gets complicated quite quickly. This is because the question cuts to a fundamental but...

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By now, the conference halls in Poznań are probably ghost towns, the coat racks emptied, and the once buzzing coffee machines silent. I myself am back stateside, slowly readjusting to a diet composed of significantly fewer potatoes, beets, and cabbage, trying to wrap my mind around the last 24 hours at the U.N. climate change negotiations in Poland, the final outcomes of COP14, and what all this means for next year and climate action.

The last 24 hours in Poznań were a blur of packing, anxiety, negotiations, and flurried emails with one-line notes like "Art. 9 -- finalized NO DESICION!!!!!" in the subject.

Amidst all the last minute commotion, it seems...

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After a lively weekend of holiday fairs, cocktail receptions and NGO parties, the beginning of week two at the United Nations International Climate Change negotiations in Poznań got off to a slow start. The official negotiations were cancelled in observance of the Muslim holiday Eid ul-Adha, so most participants spent their time milling around side events and other informal discussions. 

With a week left to go in the process, there are mixed emotions about how much progress has been made so far, and how much we can expect over the next few days.  A key figure in the process lamented this weekend that although we are halfway to Copenhagen (where COP will be taking place in...

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