Accounting for Carbon Offsets

Three sources account for the great majority of human-created greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions: burning fossil fuels for energy, industrial chemical processes unrelated to energy production, and agriculture. Even with advances in “clean” energy technologies, the world remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels, and we do not have a realistic path to sustaining society without using current agricultural or industrial chemical processes, which together account for over 25% of GHG emissions today. Any plausible strategy for addressing climate change must, therefore, include removing GHG emissions from the atmosphere.