forest-based carbon offsets may not be as effective as some think, Fox News reports.
Trees grow slowly and “the small print on tree-planting offsets typically indicate a 40-year maturity,” said Adam Stein, co-founder of TerraPass, a San Francisco-based offset company.
Stein says forests carry inherent risks because when trees die, they release the carbon they've absorbed during their lifetimes. TerraPass doesn't offer any forestry options for its customers.
However companies, such as Carbonfund.org, that sell reforestation offsets have no doubt about their effectiveness. The organization sets deadlines for its reforestation projects. For example, the amount of CO2 sequestered by the Nicaragua project is measured only for the first 40 years.
In other offset related news, new U.N. data shows that the issued supply of Kyoto Protocol carbon offsets has grown by a fifth in the past three months, reported Reuters.
For the quarter ended December, Certified Emissions Reduction credits grew by 45.7 million, up 29 percent from 35.5 million issued in the third quarter of 2008.
