N※N

Some air travelers bothered by their flight's emissions turn to carbon offsets. Do they work?

  //travel-leisure.news-articles.net/content/2025/ .. issions-turn-to-carbon-offsets-do-they-work.html
  Published in Travel and Leisure on Monday, September 29th 2025 at 9:31 GMT by WNYT NewsChannel 13

• 🞛 This publication is a summary or evaluation of another publication
• 🞛 This publication contains editorial commentary or bias from the source

2025-09-29 300 x 168 / 6705 Bytes

2025-09-29 275 x 183 / 2609 Bytes

2025-09-29 300 x 168 / 5451 Bytes

Air Travelers Turn to Carbon Offsets, But Do They Really Work?

An AP‑style roundup of the latest push to curb aviation’s climate impact, featuring passenger perspectives, industry initiatives, and the science that underpins carbon offsetting.

A growing number of flyers are looking beyond the seatbelt sign and the in‑flight entertainment system to the environmental cost of their journeys. In a new AP‑sourced story published by WNYT, a handful of New York City residents, each with a different reason to care about their carbon footprints, explain why they’re buying carbon offsets for their flights. Their stories point to a larger question that has been swirling in the travel industry for the past decade: do carbon offsets actually do what they promise?

The Rising Passenger Consciousness

The article opens with the experiences of three travelers: a software engineer who recently took a flight from New York to London for a family reunion; a graduate student who flew to a climate conference in Denver; and a retiree who routinely takes trips to Florida for the winter. All three were “bothered” by the emissions data that the Transportation Department of the United Nations now makes available online, and they decided to purchase offsets “to feel a little better about the miles they flew.”

These individual anecdotes are backed up by a larger trend. According to the article, a 2023 survey by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that 27 % of frequent flyers in the U.S. had purchased carbon offsets for at least one trip. While that’s a small minority of the roughly 350 million domestic air travelers last year, the industry is taking notice. Several major carriers—American, Delta, United, and Southwest—now offer a “buy carbon” option at checkout, and the airline “offset marketplace” the article links to explains how it works: a portion of the passenger’s ticket price is earmarked for an environmental project that removes or reduces an equivalent amount of CO₂ from the atmosphere.

How Offsets Are Calculated

The story spends a good deal of space unpacking the math behind the “offset” label. The core idea is simple: a flight that produces 1 kg of CO₂ per passenger should be counterbalanced by a project that removes 1 kg of CO₂ from the atmosphere. The article quotes an analyst at the Carbon Offset Marketplace who points out that a typical round‑trip flight from New York to London emits about 1.2 tCO₂ per passenger. To offset that, a passenger could purchase a credit for a tree‑planting project in the Amazon or a wind‑farm in Texas that will absorb a comparable amount of CO₂ over its lifetime.

However, the math is far from straightforward. As the article notes, many offset projects are not permanent; trees can be cut down, wind turbines can fail, and some projects have a “leakage” effect where emissions are simply shifted elsewhere. The piece links to a separate AP story on the “Carbon Offset Rating” system, which shows how third‑party verifiers like Gold Standard and the Verified Carbon Standard evaluate projects for permanence, additionality, and monitoring.

The Skeptic’s Perspective

Not everyone is convinced that offsets are a magic bullet. The article quotes a climate scientist from the University of Maryland who argues that while offsets can play a role in a larger emissions‑reduction strategy, they are not a substitute for cutting emissions at the source. “If we only offset what we produce, we’re ignoring the bigger problem of fossil‑fuel‑dependent aviation,” he said. The piece also links to a policy brief from the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions that calls for stronger regulations on the aviation sector, including mandatory emissions reporting and a phase‑in of zero‑emission aircraft.

The article further touches on the growing criticism that some “green” marketing campaigns are more about public relations than actual impact. A New York Times review of “green flight” promotions, which the WNYT story cites, points out that some airlines have been found to overstate the amount of CO₂ removed by their offset programs. In a recent audit, a number of offset providers were discovered to have “leakage” rates as high as 30 %, meaning that a significant fraction of the promised CO₂ reduction never actually happened.

The Industry’s Pushback

Despite the criticisms, airlines remain committed to offering offset options. The article quotes a spokesperson from Delta Airlines, who says that the company “doesn’t see offsets as a permanent solution, but as an immediate step that can help passengers reduce their environmental impact while we work on long‑term technologies like sustainable aviation fuel and electric aircraft.” The story links to Delta’s sustainability page, which details the company’s plan to reduce its carbon intensity by 50 % by 2030.

The article also discusses how the offset marketplace has responded to consumer demand for transparency. “We’ve added a dashboard that lets you see exactly where your offset money goes—whether it’s a wind farm, a reforestation project, or a methane‑capture initiative at a landfill,” says a representative of the marketplace. In addition, the marketplace claims to partner with non‑profit organizations that have third‑party certification to ensure that projects meet international standards.

A Call for Deeper Action

In closing, the WNYT article underscores that buying offsets is a step in the right direction—especially for those who have no alternative but to fly. Yet it also highlights the need for a more comprehensive approach to aviation’s climate impact. “Offsets are only part of the puzzle,” the article stresses, citing both the climate scientist’s admonition and the policy brief’s recommendation for stricter emissions caps.

The piece concludes by urging readers to “look beyond the discount button and ask, what does this offset actually do?” It reminds travelers that, while their individual actions matter, the ultimate goal must be to accelerate the transition to zero‑emission aviation technology and reduce overall flight demand where feasible.

Beyond the headline: The story links to several additional resources that provide deeper insight into the carbon offset landscape. These include a detailed report from the Carbon Offset Marketplace on project verification standards, a policy brief from the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions that discusses regulatory pathways, and a recent interview with a climate activist who has been involved in local reforestation projects funded by airline offsets. By exploring these links, readers can get a fuller picture of the complexities and controversies surrounding carbon offsets in the aviation sector.