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When world leaders meet this week at the annual United Nations climate summit, it will be hard for anyone to ignore the U.S. election results and what a Trump administration will mean for U.S. leadership on the issue.
Donald Trump will likely pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement – for a second time – once he takes office and cede world leadership on climate and clean energy to China and others.
But global temperatures continue to rise regardless of who’s in the Oval Office, and leaders have a lot on their plates during this year’s summit.
One issue they’ll be discussing is how companies use what are known as carbon offsets to claim progress toward their climate promises. Offsets let companies pay for projects like tree planting or forest protection efforts elsewhere to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on their behalf. These are touted as win-wins for the company and the project’s host community. But are they actually paying off for the climate?
Sehoon Kim tracked how hundreds of public companies have been using carbon offsets over the past two decades. The results were surprising, and they say a lot about which companies have been greenwashing.
And if you're not quite sure what greenwashing is, you can read this beginner's guide that also offers advice on how to avoid fallling for it.
The UK recently announced it will be handing the sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago – a group of islands – back to Mauritius. The UK will, however, retain control of the biggest island, Diego Garcia. Daniela Marggraff, Samuel Oyewole and Maxi Schoeman explain how the UK gained control of the archipelago, how the US is involved and why there is reluctance to return Diego Garcia.
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