Do Carbon Offsets Offset Carbon?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Calel, Raphael; Colmer, Jonathan; Dechezlepretre, Antoine; Glachant, Matthieu
• 署名单位: Georgetown University; University of Virginia; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Universite PSL; MINES ParisTech
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20230052
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: research-and-development; environmental benefits; emissions; incentives; state; regulations; mechanisms; INNOVATION; ECONOMICS; payments

摘要

We develop and implement a new method for identifying wasted subsidies and use it to provide systematic evidence of the misallocation of carbon offsets in the Clean Development Mechanism-the world's largest carbon offset program. Using newly constructed data on the locations and characteristics of over 1,000 wind farms in India, we estimate that at least 52 percent of approved carbon offsets were allocated to projects that would very likely have been built anyway. We estimate that the sale of these offsets to regulated polluters resulted in substantially higher global carbon dioxide emissions.(JEL H23, O13, Q42, Q54, Q58)