Carbon offsets have been the center of some high profile scandals over the past few years, but what else is there to these stories? Why does the voluntary carbon market exist and how do we know if carbon offsets are actually making a difference? Tune in to Life in the Greenhouse to learn about all the shades of green in the carbon offset market.

Show Notes:

0:53 ClimeCo: https://shop.climeco.com/offset/air-travel/

3:50 Carbon Accounting, Reporting, and Management Lab at Northern Arizona University: https://carml.rc.nau.edu/about/

10:10 Refrigerant destruction: https://www.recoolit.com/

11:45 Oil derricks in CA: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/oil-derricks-california-old-photos/

12:26 Over half a million oil derricks in the US: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29709-3

12:54 Oil well shut down: https://www.carbonpath.io/

18:01 Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market “The 10 Core Carbon Principles”: https://icvcm.org/the-core-carbon-principles/

19:11 Project Protocol: https://ghgprotocol.org/project-protocol

23:37 “In Juneau, Alaska, a carbon offset project that’s actually working” Grist, January 2024 (subtitle: Visiting Alaska is an emissions-heavy prospect. An innovative program has tourists ease that by helping buy heat pumps for locals.)

29:47 The Great Cash-for-Carbon Hustle The New Yorker 10/16/2023, about South Pole (company) and a great history of carbon credits plus the Zimbabwe Kariba project

34:06 Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest certifier are worthless, analysis shows Guardian 1/18/2023, about studies into Verra, the world's leading offset certifier

37:38 Oil companies relying on carbon offsets: https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/carbon-offsets-2023/companies.html

38:55 Oxy claimed a shipload of crude oil was entirely carbon neutral: https://www.reuters.com/article/climatechange-fossilfuels-offsets-insigh-idINKBN2C31AO/

Countless companies, including fossil fuel companies, have pledged to achieve net zero emissions. This sounds like great news! But there’s more to the story. We’re talking about what net zero really means and how a company could actually get there while explaining the importance of the Science-Based Targets Initiative.

Show Notes:

2:00 The ⁠Carbon Accounting, Reporting, and Management Lab⁠ (CARML) at Northern Arizona University

8:12 2015 Paris Agreement, relevance to the history of net-zero targets, net-zero targets cover 91% of global economy: Net Zero: A short history

14:50 Net Zero Tracker

16:12 Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi)

20:03 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) special report, “Global Warming of 1.5 ºC”

21:21 SBTi policy on fossil fuel companies

26:21 article about the CO2 pipeline failure in Satartia, Mississippi: “The U.S. is expanding CO2 pipelines. One poisoned town wants you to know its story” from NPR

27:25 ExxonMobil highlighting enhanced oil recovery

27:35 Oxy and net-zero oil

31:05 Net Zero Tracker report Ross references

35:20 List (dashboard) of companies with net-zero targets that the SBTi has validated

35:40 CDP

Extreme Makeover: The Oil and Gas Edition is afoot. The companies we’ve long known as fossil fuel companies are telling us they’re actually energy companies committed to finding solutions to climate change. We’re not so sure, so we’re parsing it out using greenhouse gas accounting and discussing the concept of emission scopes along the way.

Show Notes:

1:40 The Carbon Accounting, Reporting, and Management Lab (CARML) at Northern Arizona University

2:46 “And because we are so dependent on these fossil fuels, we consume A LOT—just take oil for example. Around the world humans burn about 4.2 billion gallons of oil every single day. 

4:36 Current concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere measured at Mauna Loa, Hawai’i

6:42 Keeling Curve

12:57 Drilled podcast homepage

• Petroganda: Drilled’s series on “The fossil fuel industry’s favorite narratives.” This is the series we reference in Episode One when Erica says “You can check out another great podcast called Drilled for fantastic reporting about how oil & gas companies, particularly ExxonMobile, have a long history of spreading misinformation about climate change.

18:12 "Most captured CO2 is used in enhanced oil recovery" 2022 IEEFA analysis

18:40 “[T]ools we can use to investigate the question of branding claims vs. reality”

• Paper: Li M, Trencher G, Asuka J (2022) The clean energy claims of BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell: A mismatch between discourse, actions and investments. PLoS ONE 17(2): e0263596. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263596
• This examination of oil majors’ discourse, business strategies, and financials concluded: “We found a strong increase in discourse related to “climate”, “low-carbon” and “transition”, especially by BP and Shell. Similarly, we observed increasing tendencies toward strategies related to decarbonization and clean energy. But these are dominated by pledges rather than concrete actions. Moreover, the financial analysis reveals a continuing business model dependence on fossil fuels along with insignificant and opaque spending on clean energy. We thus conclude that the transition to clean energy business models is not occurring, since the magnitude of investments and actions does not match discourse. Until actions and investment behavior are brought into alignment with discourse, accusations of greenwashing appear well-founded.
• “Oil Companies Are Trying to Rebrand Themselves on Social Media” Reporting from the Natural Resources Defense Council contrasting oil companies’ ad campaigns with how they spend their lobbying dollars, from 2019

21:53 “For example, burning one gallon of gasoline in a motor vehicle results in about 20 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions.” See the EPA’s GHG Emission Factors Hub.

31:35 “Today, we're zooming in on ExxonMobil's recent $60 billion acquisition of Pioneer Gas in October 2023.”

35:43 The Climate Registry emission factors (2023)

Climate change is a problem driven by fossil fuels. And yet, companies we’ve long known as producers of fossil fuels are rebranding themselves as key players in the fight against climate change, all while spending billions of dollars exploring for more oil & gas. We’ll spend our first season examining this rebrand using greenhouse gas accounting as our investigative tool.