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The Ethics Of Carbon Neutrality: A Critical Examination Of Voluntary Carbon Offset Providers, K. Kathy Dhanda, Laura Hartman

Laura Hartman

In this paper, we explore the world’s response to the increasing impact of carbon emissions on the sobering threat posed by global warming: the carbon offset market. Though the market is a relatively new one, it has quickly spawned countless offset providers under both regulated and voluntary regimes. Due to the naïveté of some stakeholders who participate in the market surrounding its rather technical aspects, no common quality or certification structure has emerged for providers. In fact, there are claims to the contrary, that a somewhat ‘cowboy’ atmosphere exists, and that there are “widespread instances of people and organizations buying …