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The Biden administration on Tuesday announced new guidelines for ensuring the integrity of carbon credits or offsets.
While the practice of buying carbon offsets or credits is voluntary, the administration says it hopes to help ensure that credits being sold are actually credible.
Individuals, businesses and other entities can buy these credits to try to “offset” their emissions as part of an effort to achieve net-zero. This can entail things like paying organizations to plant trees or prevent them from being cut down.
But, markets for carbon credits have been plagued by issues including double counting. Questions have also been raised in some markets that preserve trees about whether they would have been cut down otherwise or how long they will be protected.