Dominated by deep divisions over finance to developing countries and efforts to mitigate global warming, the COP29 climate talks in Baku nonetheless offered a relatively smooth passage for rules on a controversial method to reduce carbon emissions. Switzerland, which is highly reliant on carbon offsets, celebrated the agreement. Since being introduced in the Paris climate agreement, moves to offset polluting activities with projects that avoid carbon emissions have boomed. Businesses and countries have ploughed ahead to wind up deals - often in developing countries - to offset their CO2 footprints and claim net zero goals. One of the keenest adopters of carbon offsetting has been Switzerland, which to date has concluded about a dozen agreements with other countries, long before some of the technical fine print was gavelled Saturday night at the COP29 in Baku. What are carbon credits or offsets? Carbon credits are certificates representing a claim to an amount of carbon emissions ...
