Helping The Environment Through Carbon Offset

By Claire Carter

As the world tries to deal with the serious threats posed by air pollutants and greenhouse gases, carbon offset provides an incentive to encourage governments and organizations to keep carbon emissions within reasonable limits.

The unregulated emission of harmful greenhouse gases is controlled by the carbon offset idea, which does so by giving incentive for making use of alternative and green energy, reforestation schemes etc.. The greenhouse gas emission limits for developed and emerging nations are regulated by the Kyoto Protocol, an internationally recognized pact, which was ratified in 2005 by almost all countries of the world.

According to the Protocol, companies releasing thousands of kilos of carbon dioxide have to either cut back on their emissions to the permitted levels, purchase carbon credits certificates, which can be traded on the bourses, or otherwise pay a carbon tax for being in compliance with the prescribed reduction. One carbon credit, which is an older method than carbon offset, authorizes the credit's buyer to discharge 1000 kilograms of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and this technique is the most cost effective method of purchasing an allowance to release extra greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Large companies are catching up with the global carbon-neutral campaign and buying carbon credits to make an impact on customers, investors and business partners.

Another great method is using carbon offset, which helps in funding ambitious environmental schemes, especially in developing nations that are constantly struggling to fund such projects to decrease the impact of the total greenhouse gas emissions. It greatly aids in promoting renewable and green energy options like tidal energy and wind energy, and in funding projects on nature protection and reforestation.

Even individuals are increasingly making use of the carbon offset scheme to decrease their carbon footprint and are advocating this method to others as well. Carbon offset can be conveniently bought online through one of the many providers, but care must be taken to ensure that your money is channelled to the right projects.

Although carbon offset is a great alternative we must also remember that we need to go a step further by making small environment friendly decisions in our everyday lives. Small steps like turning off electrical devices and appliances when not in use, substituting fossil fuels by cleaner ones like biodiesel, and using LED lighting and low-energy bulbs can actually help a lot in reducing overall emissions.

Carbon offset is still a new word for ordinary people. Awareness of the same in the form of relevant education on the subject is the way forward towards a healthy and sustainable environment.

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