Climate Economics with Arvid Viaene
This podcast aims to raise the level of conversation around climate change by bringing data and economics to the forefront. As an economist, I focus on quantifying everything — from emissions and their impacts to the costs and trade-offs of climate policies. Episodes will be either expert interviews or solo explorations of key issues.
Hosted by Dr. Arvid Viaene, a climate economist with a PhD from the University of Chicago. His research on climate-related mortality has been published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, and he has advised the European Commission on the impacts of climate policy on firm competitiveness.
Climate Economics with Arvid Viaene
#4 Dr. Ben Probst - Can We Trust Carbon Offsets? Evidence from 1 Billion Credits
Carbon credit offsets sound great in theory. But how well do they actually work in practice? In this new episode of my podcast, I talk with Dr. Benedict Probst about one of the largest reviews ever done on the effectiveness of carbon credit offsets, which covers over 1 billion credits across dozens of studies.
We discuss what his research says, why less than 16% of credits were found to be effective, and what this means for future climate policy, especially as the EU considers offsets in its 2040 targets.
Content includes:
01:08 – What are carbon credit offsets? Definitions and categories
04:15 – A brief history of offsets: Kyoto, voluntary markets, and compliance systems
10:40 – The meta-study: what Dr. Probst and his co-authors did, and why
15:58 – Key result: only 16% of credits represented actual emission reductions
18:02 – Wind projects had a 0% effectiveness: they look good on paper but perform poorly on additionality
23:50 – Forest management projects and “adverse selection”
26:24 – Cookstoves: lessons in behavioral assumptions
30:22 – Chemical gas destruction: high efficiency but with potential perverse incentives
33:39 – Policy risks: how offsets could potentially undermine EU goals
37:10 – Article 6.2 vs. 6.4 of the Paris Agreement: Potential and pitfalls
Sources:
* The paper: Probst, B.S., Toetzke, M., Kontoleon, A. et al. Systematic assessment of the achieved emission reductions of carbon crediting projects. Nat Commun 15, 9562 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-53645-z. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-53645-z (free to download)
* Dr. Probst’s website: https://www.netzerolab.science/
* Politico article providing information on the Commission's proposal to meet up to 3 percentage points of the new target with international carbon credits: https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-comission-climate-target-2036-plan/
#ClimateEconomics #CarbonMarkets #Offsets #ClimatePolicy #Sustainability #ClimateScience #Podcast
For questions, comments or suggestions, you can contact me at arvid.viaene.ce@gmail.com