United Airlines Spurns Carbon Offsets With New Effort to Go Green
Photo Caption: United Airlines plans to go 100 percent green by 2050 with a new investment in carbon sequestration. Edward Russell
Skift Take
United Airlines plans to stay ahead of the pack with a new effort to go "100 percent green." But it's unclear whether the decision to invest in something called direct carbon sequestration plants is any better than the industry norm of buying offsets for the nearly billion tons of greenhouse gases planes pump into the atmosphere every year.
Most travelers are familiar with the common flight booking add-on: Do you want to buy a carbon offset for your next trip?
The idea is simple. When a traveler buys a credit, the airline takes that money and invests it in projects that take carbon out of the air. For example, funds from a recently purchased offset from Qantas went towards protecting a Tasmanian forest, supporting Indigenous rangers to prevent wildfires in western Australia, and a wind farm in southern India.
Sounds good, right? Not to United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby.
“It may feel good in the short term but the math just doesn’t come close to adding up,” he told reporters on Wednesday. There is not enough land to plant all the trees needed to fully offset the carbon humans are putting in the atmosphere, whether through flying or other activities, Kirby added.
Airlines globally emitted 915 million tons of carbon in 2019, according to trade group the International Air Transport Association (IATA). That equ
