For tomorrow: giving something back to the climate

For example, if you emit greenhouse gases from a flight or car trip, you can "compensate". The simple idea: I pay money to an organization so that it can plant trees, for example. The trees bring the CO2 that I caused back out of the atmosphere. Nice idea, but what happens when the trees die, die at the end of their life, burn down or are cut down? 

Other CO2 compensation concepts are also based on uncertain assumptions. Atmosfair For example, I use the donations from the “compensators” to buy cooking stoves for poor families in Africa so that you no longer have to cut down so much forest for their fireplaces. Not a bad idea either, but who knows what will happen to the stoves in far-off Africa, whether people really use them and how long they will work. Atmosfair, like other providers of CO2 offsetting, promises that they will control the whereabouts of the stoves, but they can only do so to a limited extent. For example, these CO2 compensations are very critical Pia Voelker from the genetic ethical network. 

A completely different path goes alongside Climate Fair the organization For tomorrow.

Also on theirs Website you can "offset" your CO2 emissions. The organization buys CO2 emission certificates from the proceeds and locks them away.

Hintergrund:

The European Union wants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the economy by issuing certificates for pollution rights. The operators of coal-fired power plants, the steel or cement industries pollute the climate with very high greenhouse gas emissions. For every ton of CO2 they cause they have to surrender certificates. A certain amount of it was initially given to them by the EU. Now they have to buy it. At the beginning of 2021, it started its own in Germany Emissions trading system. It works on the same principle. Anyone who blows climate-damaging gases into the air must buy the right to do so in the form of certificates. 

Buy the certificates away from the polluters

For Tomorrow is now buying (like the compensators) the certificates away from the donation income. In this way, the two organizations ensure that the price rises and climate-damaging production methods become more expensive. This works as long as Germany or the EU - as promised - do not throw additional certificates on the market or even give them to companies (as in the early days).

Trees for Germany

For Tomorrow also plants trees in Germany from its income. Here - in contrast to most other countries - there is a legal regulation that destroyed forest areas are reforested - or, for example, after construction work has to be done elsewhere. You can find a detailed interview with For-Tomorrow founder Ruth von Heusinger in the geilmontag podcast from January 11.1.2021th, XNUMX .

You can see from the many ifs and buts that it is always better to avoid greenhouse gas emissions, for example to take the train or bus instead of the car or plane or - not to travel at all. You should at least offset emissions that you cannot avoid.