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KICK THE HABIT
THE CYCLE – OFFSET
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CITIES
For Cities basically the same principles apply as for organizations. First and
foremost you would want to ensure the quality of your offsets, that they are
truly additional, not double-counted and promote sustainable development
in the area where they are implemented.
Depending on the amount of offsets you are planning to purchase in order
to eliminate the remainder of your emissions, you might consider going
through an offset provider which will be quite convenient. Choosing a par-
ticular project that is easily understandable and with obvious benefits to the
climate, local people and the environment will help to include your citizens
and communicate what offsets are and how they work.
Larger cities might be interested in the option of purchasing directly from
project developers or even create their own projects as described for large
organizations.
COUNTRIES
Through the Kyoto Protocol mechanisms countries are bound to the com-
pliance market if they want offsets to be accounted on their emissions bal-
ance under the legal framework.
Countries play an important role in bringing forward the whole system of
carbon offsetting. In order to improve the whole system for mandatory and
voluntary offsets a country can do even more than a city to raise standards
in the industry, both by what it decides to do nationally and by working
for effective international regulation. Obvious examples are the countries
which were the first to join UNEP’s Climate Neutral Network: Costa Rica.
Iceland, New Zealand and Norway.
The Holy See (Vatican) is one example of willingness to explore the po-
tential of offsetting, planting a forest in Hungary to compensate for car-
bon emissions from papal flights. Any city or country can also exert some
regulatory power over offset schemes, for example by requiring suppliers to
choose only those proven to work.