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‘Rearranging the deck chairs as the climate ship is going down’: Critics pan US carbon offset ‘scheme’
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‘Rearranging the deck chairs as the climate ship is going down’: Critics pan US carbon offset ‘scheme’
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The Biden administration faced sharp criticism from environmental justice champions on Wednesday after U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry unveiled a voluntary carbon offset scheme that he and philanthropic foundation partners say would unleash private investment to expedite a clean energy transition in low-income nations.
“Carbon offsets are not an answer in a world already on fire, under water, and facing mounting climate losses and damage,” Rachel Cleetus, policy director for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement.
“While the exact details are still unclear, the outlines of the U.S. proposal are out of step with the science, which calls for steep, absolute emission reductions as soon as possible if we are to have any chance of meeting the goals of the Paris agreement,” said Cleetus.
Two weeks ago, the United Nations warned that there is “no credible path to 1.5°C in place” and that only “urgent system-wide transformation” can prevent cataclysmic levels of global warming.
But during the U.N. COP27 summit in Egypt, Kerry announced a new public-private partnership between the U.S. government, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Bezos Earth Fund that leaves intact the capitalist social relations propelling climate breakdown.
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