A lot of hot air – Puistokatu 4’s members Alizée Ville and Tom Nickson discuss about the problems of carbon offsetting

BY: Puistokatu 4 7.9.2026

Tom Nickson: “People care deeply about nature. In Finland, 91% of people are worried about the global state of nature, and 96% say that clean nature is an important part of the Finnish identity [1]. But when it comes to climate action, we still place too much faith in carbon offsets instead of cutting pollution directly.”

Alizée Ville: “Yes – people want to help nature, but they’re being sold the idea that pollution in one place can simply be ‘balanced out’ somewhere else. About 80% of Finns believe that environmental degradation must be compensated, by restoring nature elsewhere. The problem is that offsets often don’t work: in the Global South, studies suggest that 94% of forest carbon offset projects have been ineffective [2]”

Tom: “That’s a staggering number. It shows how offsetting can create the illusion of action without forcing real change. Our research at the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) argues that carbon offsetting is fundamentally flawed. Instead of reducing emissions at the source, it allows companies and governments to delay meaningful action [3].”

Alizée: “That sounds familiar. In forestry, there is an illusion that planting trees will magically save the world. But forests are not permanent carbon vaults. Forests can burn. Trees can be logged. Pests and droughts can destroy restoration projects overnight. Protecting one forest may simply push deforestation somewhere else. There’s also a justice issue. Some offset projects restrict Indigenous communities from using their own land while corporations in the Global North get a licence to pollute.”

Tom: “Yes, and then there’s the issue of perverse incentives too, where negative outcomes are unintentionally encouraged by allowing crediting activities to take place. One notorious example is the HFC-23 scandal, which saw fluorochemical facilities deliberately producing a highly potent greenhouse gas byproduct, just so they could destroy it and earn carbon credits. The system literally rewarded more pollution.”

Alizée: “Exactly. Those kinds of unforeseen consequences apply to forests too, and they become locked in by our reliance on credits. For years, conservation, afforestation, and REDD+ projects have been used to compensate for emissions elsewhere. But sometimes, this means that we are paying the same actors that have driven deforestation in one region, for the supposed benefit they are providing in another. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance, several logging companies are now converting their logging concessions to conservation concessions and are being paid for carbon credits [4].”

Tom: “What’s more, markets treat all credits as interchangeable, but we know that doesn’t reflect reality. If you take a greenhouse gas like methane, which is the second greatest contributor to climate change, but which only lingers in the atmosphere for around 10 years, how can you balance its emissions with something like CO2, which can remain in the atmosphere for hundreds? Because of its short atmospheric lifetime, preventing a tonne of methane emissions has an immediate impact on limiting warming in the short term, whereas the climate benefit from preventing a tonne of CO2 emissions occurs over a much longer period. Both are vital, but you can’t just swap one with the other.”

Alizée: “Yes, there’s a similar issue we see in forestry credits. There is a tendency to treat tree plantations – i.e., industrial afforestation using monospecific or very few non-native fast-growing tree species – as equivalent to forest ecosystems. Plantations are not an effective way to combat climate change they don’t store as much carbon and are not as long-lasting nor resilient. Planting eucalyptus fields is not the same as preserving centuries-old diverse forests. Tree plantations are not necessarily forests.”

Tom: “The issue is that, while our fields of expertise are very different in many ways, when it comes to credits, the flaws are systemic; this means they cut across any sector they are applied to. Systemic issues include non-additionality – that means credits being issued for actions that would have happened anyway – and lack of permanence. Think about how temporary carbon storage in a tree is, when it is forever at risk of being felled, succumbing to pests or disease, or simply dying after a certain time.

Alizée: “There’s also double counting, as in emissions reductions being counted by both the credit seller and the credit buyer, leakage, which refers to emissions being displaced elsewhere, and weak oversight, with scandals frequently exposing fraud and over-crediting.”

Tom: “Markets often lack transparency, and their reliance on flawed baselines and verification undermines environmental integrity. Ultimately, offsetting and crediting delay urgent, absolute emissions reductions and perpetuate injustice.”

Alizée: “For forests, I think we need local restoration, fixing damage where damage is done, instead of outsourcing to other countries, as we state in a recent policy brief published by some colleagues from Helsinki Institute Of Sustainability Science (Helsus) [5]. For stronger biodiversity protection, we will need policies designed with Indigenous peoples and local communities – not imposed on them through top down policies.”

Tom: “Yes. And for greenhouse gases, we need direct regulation, producer responsibility and public investment, not creative accounting through carbon markets.”

Alizée: “Ultimately, offsetting allows delay. It creates the appearance of action without requiring structural change.”

Tom: “Real climate action means reducing emissions at the source and restoring ecosystems directly, not outsourcing responsibility through offsets.”

Alizée: “Yes. What if climate mitigation was treated as a public obligation rather than a market commodity? And what if countries were responsible for reducing emissions within their own borders instead of paying for projects on the other side of the world?”

***

  Dr Alizée Ville is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki. She is the recipient of a postdoctoral grant from the Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation for the project “Calling Trees by Their Name: Enhancing Biodiversity Literacy in Global Timber Trade”, which focuses on strengthening understanding of biodiversity within global supply chains, from the Forests of Finland to the Congo Basin. She is a member of the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS) and the Helsinki Inequality Initiative (INEQ).

 Tom Nickson is a Climate Campaigner at EIA UK, with a professional background in social research and policy evaluation. Tom has worked across a wide range of environmental issues and is closely engaged with work under the Montreal Protocol, UNFCCC and United Nations Environment Assembly. His current work focuses on global efforts to reduce emissions of climate super pollutants including nitrous oxide, HFCs and ozone-depleting substances.

More information.

[1] Finnish Ministry of the Environment (2025). Awareness of progress of biodiversity loss has increased, climate solutions seen as opportunity for Finland. https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410903/awareness-ofprogress-of-biodiversity-loss-has-increased-climatesolutions-seen-as-opportunity-for-finland

[2] West, T. A. P., Wunder, S., Sills, E. O., Börner, J., Rifai, S. W., Neidermeier, A. N., Frey, G. P., & Kontoleon, A. (2023). Action needed to make carbon offsets from forest conservation work for climate change mitigation. Science, 381(6660), 873–877.

[3] EIA. (2026). EIA Position on Carbon Credits and Offsetting. https://eia-international.org/report/eia-position-on-carbon-credits-and-offsetting/

[4] Koh, N. S., Pietarinen, N., Ville, A., Kengoum, F., Wong, G., & Brockhaus, M. (2025). Follow the money: Can REDD+ finance compete with established and emerging land investments in Mai-Ndombe, Democratic Republic of Congo? Forest Policy and Economics, 181, 103664. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103664

[5] Ayonghe, A. N., Casi, C., Ville, A., Luhas, J. P. H., Ehrlichmann, H. V., Li, C., Mäntylä, S. H. H., Pietarinen, N., Rahman, Md. R., Käyhkö, O., & Sadovska, J. (2025). Forest Restoration for Just, Resilient, and Sustainable Futures: A Call to Action. http://hdl.handle.net/10138/604260