Answers to the Most Challenging Questions About Carbon Offset, Part II

August 25, 2022
Answers to the Most Challenging Questions About Carbon Offset, Part II
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Santiago studied Renewable Energy Engineering. In addition to being co-founder and CEO of Toroto, he is Director of the Student Energy board. At Toroto, he leads a technical team that operates nature-based solutions, ecological restoration, carbon markets and more.

In the First part In this interview we talked about some interesting controversies surrounding carbon compensation. We delve into the presence of climate colonialism in the carbon market, in the permanence of a forest carbon project that exists on a planet that is burning with increasing force and on whether or not to monetize nature is the right way to face and resolve the climate crisis. We know that these are controversial issues full of challenges, so we decided to answer these questions from our position and experience, with our CEO and co-founder as representative. Today we will continue with the second part of this interview where we will talk about some other controversies such as monocultures, additionality generated in a project, capitalism in times of climate crisis and what we must change to really do things differently.



Toroto: Why does a forest carbon project do and any monoculture (palm, for example) not? Doesn't all vegetation capture CO2? Wouldn't the latter option be more cost-effective for land owners?

Santiago: No. The point of proper management of the ecosystem is the recovery of its functional characteristics, and this is not compatible with having trees and that's it. Or that it's green and that's it. It's about recovering this functionality, that is, the ecosystem services offered in landscapes - carbon sequestration, water infiltration, biological corridors and others. One of the main strengths of the natural world for existing with resilience is precisely its biodiversity. Within a landscape, all species have an interaction that, far from being coincidental, is necessary for the correct establishment of the entire plant, fungal, microscopic and animal universe that involves biodiversity. A monoculture does not have a balance in wealth and abundance, there is no balance between the nutrients that enter the soil and those that leave the soil, since it only involves one species. A monoculture is not permeable to other organisms, there are no interspecies interactions. When we have monocultures or think about a project solely from the logic of an ecosystem service, let's say, “I'm only interested in infiltrating water”, this is not proper land management, nor does it restore functionality to the ecosystem. When we do restoration, one of the first steps is to establish a reference ecosystem, that is, the ecosystem that we want to reach, not us humans with our work, but nature: making minimal interventions that allow the natural succession of the ecosystem, in order to restore its resilience and functionality.

It is difficult to say if the owners of the land receive more money from a monoculture than from a forest carbon project since the business models are different; without a doubt, both are attractive to anyone: carbon comes from year to year and a monoculture depends on the productivity and life cycle of the crop in question. What is easy to say is that one of these projects is not the same as the other in terms of the benefits it generates to the ecosystem, or to the planet, or its people. You don't restore functionality to the landscape, you don't generate ecosystem services or social safeguards. While the correct management of forest carbon generates additional benefits for the owners of the land, for the planet and for biodiversity, a standard monoculture does not.

However, one reality is that many of these harmful productive projects, such as a monoculture, could also happen within proper territorial management. Correct management does not necessarily mean putting back the jungle -in many cases yes- but sometimes it means doing productive activities in the right way, such as agroforestry systems or regenerative agriculture.



T: What does the concept of “additionality” mean within carbon compensation? What does it involve?

IF: Additionality is one of the most complex and manipulable concepts that exist in the carbon market, however, I like to understand it as those conditions of well-being that exist around the conservation and restoration of a project area that would not exist in the absence of that same project. Here I am only talking about conditions of well-being, but in reality additionality also implies conditions of good governance, conditions that allow permanence and many other situations.

On the other hand, there are other ways of understanding additionality that I also like and one of these is when well-being is additional: maybe you already have conservation, but in a context of poverty or oppression; maybe you have ecosystem services in a context of persecution of activists, in a context of poaching, in a context of deforestation and illegal logging. You can have a lot and a little at the same time. In this way, when the additional thing is well-being, that capacity to find governance, yes to find permanence, to find structure within the logic of restoration and conservation of an ejido or a community, that for me is the most important form of additionality.

Now, there are logics that only concentrate on carbon, and not on ecosystem services or social safeguards, those that think that the jungle is just there and that it is separated from the protection of its owners, that is, those who inhabit the jungle do nothing to protect it; the above is something very disconnected from reality. No ecosystem is there anymore. All the jungles and forests that exist today are there today because people are there. It is important to be aware that all this vegetation would not exist if it were not for the people who own the land who actively decide to conserve the planet, together - or not - with governments, organizations or other stakeholders.

There is one more way to understand additionality, and that is the one that occurs in current records and that established by the current carbon market. For this sector, additionality is legal, meaning that if in a territory the law requires you to protect and restore an area, then you will not be paid to do so, since it is mandatory; whereas if the law allows you to devastate and you decide not to do it, then they will pay you. I don't know how to begin to explain the many ways in which the above is twisted, as if we were encouraging devastation instead of coupling market will with political will, which is what we should all be looking for.

So yes, additionality is a complex concept, I personally like to understand it as the first definition I gave and to think that when there is governance, respect, equity and permanence, well-being is additional, and then, we are doing something very well.


Even if today we stopped polluting, Reducing wouldn't be enough.

We must compensate, and whenever we exist, we must compensate.


T: Since additionality is what allows us to generate carbon credits, how do we understand carbon credits in a different way than simply capitalizing on nature?

IF: Let's start by saying that it is the increase in natural capital within a project area that we monetize. Let us not forget that in projects with proper territorial management, as we do in Toroto, For every peso that goes into the project, six or seven must enter each community or ejido that owns the land, so I don't really think the problem is to monetize. This answer goes hand in hand with the question about the carbon market and colonialism in the first part of this interview. If the system is capitalist, so are our markets. Of course. But is it wrong to monetize? For the benefit of those who have historically been oppressed by the same capitalist system that not only destroys nature, but its people? From this perspective, the question answers itself.



T: Let's say the hypothetical case - again not so hypothetical - in which a company has no incentive to stop polluting because carbon credits are very cheap, and by paying for them, it can continue Business as Usual. What can compensation do in the face of this common situation?

S: The answer is simple: true compensation cannot be cheap, because it's not cheap. Cheap carbon credits most likely represent projects that aren't really having a positive impact. It's impossible that at certain prices—$15 down, or even $20 down—there's quality climate action behind it. So, it's not that you can compensate cheaply, that's a myth; you can buy fake bonds that are very cheap, but if you are really compensating, that is, removing from the atmosphere the same amount of greenhouse gases that you emit, in addition, under a logic of well-being and a logic of permanence, that cannot be cheap. On the other hand, indeed, the price of all carbon credits must rise so that companies have a greater incentive to invest in emission reductions and then invest in carbon sequestration. That is indeed a reality.




T: Because of the latency of CO2 in the atmosphere, which is mostly an average of 100 years, what would happen if we only reduced our emissions from now on, without compensating them?

IF: Life has an impact, life is entropic, life will produce greenhouse gas emissions with whatever we do, because we can't do anything without spending and it's impossible to spend without generating greenhouse gas emissions. Every swipe, every peso, every action has greenhouse gas emissions, that's why The one who spends the most generates the most emissions. There are very few ways to spend a dollar that doesn't produce greenhouse gas emissions behind it; one of them is investing in forests, but other than that, really what you do as a consumer, whether in life and in the economy, 100% of the things you spend on have an accompanying carbon footprint.

Reducing is the first step, but there are things you can't reduce, because you're alive, you breathe and you eat and dress every day of your life. We continue to consume finite resources, it is physically impossible not to think of compensatory logic to recover ecosystem services that are destroyed as a result of the most basic economic operation.

Even if today we stopped polluting, reducing would not be enough. We must compensate, and whenever we exist, we must compensate.


La additionality It is one of the most common concepts complexes

and manipulable that exist in the carbon market.

T: Finally, how to do good climate action? What does good carbon compensation entail?

IF: Doing quality climate action shouldn't be a long and tortuous response: It's simple, you just have to do it conscientiously. The correct management of the territory implies a logic where Prioritization is made the conservation of what is now on Earth, the restoration of what is degraded and then the sustainable use of the territory. All in a way that generates an environment of well-being for the people who inhabit the territory, mainly the owners of the same lands that represent the difference between ecological disasters and a sustainable, regenerative, healthy and biodiverse reality. It's not hard to do things right.

End of interview



We still have a lot to fight for and many actions to take to build the carbon market we want. Compensation is an effective tool for confronting and solving the climate crisis, however, if it does not go hand in hand with the owners of the land, nor with fair prices, nor with welfare, nor with proper land management, little in favor of the planet and its people is actually happening. Through these questions, we wanted to present carbon compensation from a different angle, one that brings together our mission and our work to manage a more sustainable world.


Do you have a project or business and need a climate strategy? Do you want to collaborate for a more robust voluntary market in Latin America? Write to us.

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