Carbon credits, or offsets, are abstractions purchased by businesses that are meant to make up for the carbon dioxide that they release into the atmosphere. They are ostensibly bought from other entities that absorb CO2, with, of course, a compensated middle-man that arranges the affair.
An article in the Wall Street Journal indicates that sales of carbon credits have fallen dramatically and the recipients of the funds have thus fallen on hard times. It's but the latest in media reports of the failure of what has been a multi-billion dollar effort to eliminate global warming.
As usual in fin-tech superficiality America, financial geniuses solve problems by profitably shifting funds from one constituency to another without actually addressing the issue itself.
The WSJ article, hidden behind a pay wall, showed that in 2021 a metric ton of carbon credit could have been purchased for about $5 per ton by an airline or steel mill to "offset" a ton of CO2 they would produce. The price rose to a little over $16 in 2022 and has now plummeted to $6 a ton. Businesses have re-appraised the possible benefits of buying an invisible, intangible non-asset useful only as a virtue signal, if that. Who is really keeping track?
The importance of the decline in the transactions isn't damage to the atmosphere. It's that people, even corporate nabobs, are reaching the conclusion that even a well-engineered con game can be discovered and ignored.
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