This is not a surprise. A geologist explained this to me years ago.
Carbon offsets were never intended to actually reduce carbon in the atmosphere. Their purpose was to allow people like Al Gore to do whatever they want while restricting the behavior and opportunities of others.
Reminds me a little bit of wetland preservation credits. A developer can buy a bunch of wetlands 100 miles away and then fill in the wetland on his development property. Pros and cons to that, but a wetland directly affects the local environment (runoff, habitat, etc.) so I’m mostly against it when it comes to the guys with money being able to buy themselves out of a jam.
Meanwhile, our neighbor down the street wanted to put a culvert in the 1-foot deep and 2-foot wide drainage ditch in his yard next to the street. It would have a bit of water in it each spring. They went to the city to try to get a permit and do all the right things.
Turns out the city classified it as the head waters of a salmon river so he couldn’t do anything about it.
The new owners of the house never bothered to ask the city or get permits and just filled it in with dirt. The city never noticed.
I’ve read horror stories too of folks that have planted decorative wetland plants in their yards - only to have turned them into “wetlands” and now they can’t do anything with their yards.
Or the guy that had property that included a creek going under the road, and folks would toss their garbage into it and the county wouldn’t clean it. So he went in and cleaned it out and had to clear some invasive blackberries to get to the trash (large appliances, etc.).
After he was done cleaning it all up and paying for the dump fees, the county fined him for destruction of wetland habitat!
Exactly. It was clear from the start that “carbon offset” was a scam, but a scam willingly entered into by cynical hypocrites like AlGore, Disney, Google, Sierra Club, etc.
Only mindless zombies like The Guardian would be surprised to find this out.