(Bloomberg) — (Corrects the percentage decrease in demand for offsets in the 2nd paragraph of a story originally published on Nov. 27, 2023, and related figures in the first two charts.)
Carbon offsets once looked primed for unstoppable growth. Analysts had forecast that the credits, which claim to wipe out a ton of emissions, would be worth hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming years. But companies are starting to cool on the market as it faces increasingly sharp criticism from scientists and experts.
Purchases by banks, airlines, industrial heavyweights and other businesses fell for the first time last year, according to Bloomberg Green’s analysis of data in three public registries covering more than 260,000 transactions since 2010. The 5% drop in demand for all offsets in 2022 from 2021 doesn’t reflect the impact from more negative events this year, such as the collapse of the world’s second-biggest project and…
