British Airways pledges to offset carbon emissions for all UK domestic flights – but what is offsetting and does it work? There are critics of off-setting who see it used as a means of exonerating frequent offenders

British Airways will begin offsetting carbon emissions on domestic flights from 1 Jan 2020, it has confirmed.

The company claims the offsetting scheme will invest in “the highest quality, verified carbon reduction projects around the world”, including renewable energy, rainforest protection and reforestation.

The carrier operates up to 75 domestic flights a day between London and 10 other UK airports, including Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Belfast City.

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Passengers flying overseas can currently use an online tool to voluntarily make their flights carbon neutral.

But how does carbon offsetting work, and is it really effective? Here’s all you need to know.

Will customers pay more for their flights?

According to British Airways, its carbon neutral pledge for flights within the UK will mean a slight increase in fares for customers.

Those on a return trip from London to Madrid will pay around £1 to offset the journey. For business class flights to and from New York, this will rise to around £15.

According to EcoPassenger a flight from London to Madrid would emit 118kg of CO2 per passenger.

Is carbon offsetting ethical?

Carbon off-setting, however, is not universally applauded, with some arguing it allows people to feel less guilty about their carbon footprint without them having to change their habits. In effect buying “absolution”.

Critics have also deemed it a distraction from the pressing danger of climate change.

Carbon off-setting often involves projects based in developing countries and which are usually designed to reduce future emissions.

Methods to achieve this could include rolling out clean energy technologies or purchasing carbon credits from an emissions trading scheme.

Such carbon credits are supposed to be issued only once these carbon savings have been made and verified. These credits can then be purchased and used to offset emissions.

What does carbon offsetting really entail?

Among British Airway’s “multi-faceted” responses to make all its flights within the UK carbon neutral from today (Wednesday) are rainforest protection and reforestation.

Clean energy projects, which are also aimed to offer social, environmental and economic benefits to sustainable development, can range from distributing efficient cooking stoves to communities, to capturing methane capture from landfill sites.

For example, efficient cooking stoves, can help poor families save money on fuel and improve their household air quality.

Using renewable sources of energy such as wind energy can also be harnessed to off-set carbon emissions.

Deforestation is seen as one of the main contributors to climate change and can include livestock ranching, logging for timber and agricultural clearcutting – a practice that sees most or all of the trees in an area cut down.

According to the Amazon Conservation Association (ACA) quoting the UN Panel on Climate Change, deforestation in tropical regions accounts for 20 per cent of man-made emissions of carbon dioxide.

It is estimated that each acre of rainforest that is protected can offset up to 260 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Tree-planting schemes, however, which work by soaking up CO2 directly from the air have come in for criticism and are now relatively uncommon.

There have been a number of tree-planting off-setting scandals in which local people were evicted from the land to make way for trees. Among other gripes, is the fact that the permanence of the trees planted cannot be guaranteed.