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Carbon Offsets and Snake Oil

EasyJet, one of Europe’s biggest budget airlines, has taken a look at the carbon offset business and doesn’t like what it found:

Toby Nicol, easyJet’s communications director, said the company had been shocked by how much money carbon offsetting firms wanted for their service. “We have been quite surprised at the percentage that the offsetting companies would like to take out of the scheme for administration costs. Between 25% and 30% of every pound put in by consumers would go into administrating the company and that was simply too expensive,” he said.”There are a lot of people who have dived into the market who are desperate to make a margin from it. There are too many snake oil salesmen in the business.”

The Guardian is running an (unscientific) online poll asking the question, “Do you trust carbon offsets.” When I voted a couple of minutes ago, the results were running 98% against.