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I was just thinking about tree planting while were driving home through the Llugwy and Conwy valleys today and how it is used to justify business as usual rather than making the deep lifestyle changes that are really needed. Having more trees is good if they are the right sort of trees in the right places. I think a lot of double offsetting may well go on too. Some time ago we bought some shares in renewable energy projects. The 'blurb' said that by doing so we were saving x amount of carbon. But surely the person who uses the green energy produced is going to claim a carbon reduction too? If the trees being planted in Wales are used to offset big companies emissions that aren't necessarily in Wales they can't be used against the total emissions in Wales too, or can they?

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Hi Louise,

many thanks for your comment- good questions. There is some seriously messed up stuff going on with carbon offsetting, double accounting and the like. I doubt if we'll ever get to the bottom of it...I'm not really happy with off-setting at all, given that to be successful, we have to guarantee that the tree grows to maturity and then is harvested and the timber locked into something long term, like houses. Otherwise its only relatively temproray trapping and storage of the emissions its supposed to offset. I don't think it can beused as an excuse to keep burning fossil fuels.

Thanks for reading and commenting. Hwyl! Chris.

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Hi Louise, thanks for reading and for your comment which raises some very valid points- I think there's some very muddy stuff going on with off-setting, double accounting and foreign companies buying up land in Cymru and claiming off-sets from the Welsh Government and we're unlikely to get to the bottom of it any time soon. I think off-setting is very dodgy anyway as we would have to guarantee that the trees grow to maturity, are harvested and the timber locked into something like buildings, otherwise its just a relatively short term store of carbon. I don't think it can safely be used as a justification for continuing to burn fossil fuels- much better to stop that and plant trees a yway! Thanks again. (I did reply to your comment before but am not 100% familiar with substack yet so if you find two replies- my apologies!)

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