Carbon offsetting is not warding off environmental collapse–it’s accelerating it

I can't imagine being surprised by this. Fundamentally, the true (teleological) purpose of carbon credit markets is threefold:

* Provide the public perception that Something Is Being Done about the looming threat of climate change while not actually forcing anyone to change anything in reality (aka "greenwashing")

* Enable a new class of speculative investment that can be used for profitable ends by the usurious class as they skim off the top

* Further shift the balance of power to larger corporations that can afford ESG sinecures and push policy so as to make it harder for smaller companies to meet regulatory compliance

The net result is not going to be much decrease in carbon - rather, if we are granting some amount of carbon credit to every area of land that presently absorbs carbon, we will just figure out a way to use it all up. Meanwhile, one can safely expect that this wealth transfer will be co-opted on the far end by all manner of corruption; the kickback schemes with this will be convoluted and inevitable.

The only actual solution to decarbonization is to actually make it make economic sense for individuals in the first world to not emit as much. This does not have to come in a form that enables countless others to skim off the top of the effort. Implementing zero-carbon electrical generation (e.g. nuclear) and getting people to switch to electricity-based energy consumption (from heat pumps to EVs) is the end goal regardless; a government with gumption and honesty would just do this directly rather than hoping some artificial "free market" will have the same result in a fashion where they cannot be blamed as quickly for failure.