Why not both? Allow companies to buy additional carbon credits from co2 sinks? Allow companies to decide between stopping a harmful industrial process or paying for its externalities.
Why not both? Allow companies to buy additional carbon credits from co2 sinks? Allow companies to decide between stopping a harmful industrial process or paying for its externalities.
To truly reverse the emissions an individual or company has, Carbon Removal is really the only way.
Carbon credits _can_ encourage businesses to reduce their emissions (and if a company has money to help - great!) but reducing a third-parties emissions is not a green-light to justify my own wrongdoings.
If I emit a ton and pay credits to offset a ton, a ton is still out there. If I emit a ton and remove a ton I am at net zero emissions.
The basic idea is to allow companies to ramp down their emissions by releasing fewer credits each year.
I could see a compromise being that one carbon credit is worth a tonne of carbon emissions, but two tonnes of sequestered carbon. So companies would have to pay for the removal of some factor of what they produce.