Re: [admin-discuss] Next steps towards a net zero IETF

[Andrew Sullivan <[e-mail]>]

Dear colleagues,

I work for the Internet Society but this is only my opinion.

On Tue, Mar 21, 2023 at 01:20:24PM -0400, John Levine wrote:

>also reiterate the point that carbon offsets are for suckers.
[…]
>forestry school about how you design forest carbon offsets and it
>became clear that you have to make some extremely optimistic
>assumptions. You have to believe that whoever has sold you the offset
>will be able and willing to prevent logging in some remote forest for
>fifty years, and also that they won't turn around resell the same
>offset to someone else next year and the year after that. They talked
>about how one might audit these things, but it wasn't very persuasive.

There is little question that many—perhaps all—offset programs are at least deficient in the actual carbon they will capture over the course of the program.
That does not, however, mean that they are necessarily an empty or worthless effort.  There are several ways in which they can be beneficial _even if_ they do not generate all the promised benefits.

To begin with, of course, actually building in some cost from carbon emissions requires two things: (1) an analysis of how much carbon an activity creates and (2) a commitment to spending that additional money.  It is not hard to see that at least some activities could increase carbon emissions in an expensive way just in case a carbon offset is in place, while yet providing only marginal benefit.  In that case, the activity will decline, which will inevitably reduce carbon outputs.  At its heart, this is the _real_ point of trying to put a price on carbon, and buying carbon offsets is necessarily a part of that story.

Second, while the auditing infrastructure for carbon offsets is currently weak (perhaps to the point of absurdity), there is little reason to suppose that the auditing industry will not get better at auditing this area of corporate expenditure as interest grows.  And, as failures to respond to audits indicating inadequate controls grow, liability for the consequences of increased carbon will conceivably rise too.  That creates a new pressure for action on carbon outputs.

Finally, if an organization is serious about these matters, every carbon offset purchase is a sign of continued carbon outputs.  Thus, the community (by way of budget and audit documents) automatically gets a way of knowing whether the organization is in fact reducing its carbon outputs (by, say, reducing travel or buying less-carbon-intensive energy) or whether it is not so reducing.  The carbon budget of the IETF is, right now, pretty obscure.  If you're going to have disputes with people about how much you owe for a given resource, that will allow others to see the extent to which you have accurately measured your resource consumption.

None of this, of course, suggests that carbon offsets will make the carbon go away.  But they might provide information about the way the organization prioritizes carbon intensity, and thereby allow the organization to change direction.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[e-mail]