The price really depends on the project selected and can vary from less than a dollar to close to $20 per tonne, and the cheaper projects do not necessarily have less of an impact (more likely they have fewer levels of independent verification).
Do note that apart from the company recommended on the Wikimania wiki, there are other options out there. For example, on the UNFCCC portal you will find many in even under the $1/tonne range: https://offset.climateneutralnow.org/allprojects if you check the individual projects, there is quite a lot of detail and documentation included to be able to have confidence that the money goes to the correct place. The ones that come with further certification can cost more of course, with the projects on the Gold Standard website being on the $10-15/tonne price range (they have a "basket" of projects option at $11[1]), and Terrapass chosen by the organisers of Wikmania also seem to be around the $9 mark (they count in pounds for some reason on their website).
For personal offsetting I am quite happy to go by the UN site and I think that is a good start to starting offsetting if one did not do it before. If one has more resources or time, they can spend it on selecting projects that meet their specific criteria (for example, social impacts beyond climate impacts, projects in specific geographic regions, or an extra level of certification) taking into account the extra cost.
Best regards, Bence
[1] https://www.goldstandard.org/take-action/offset-your-emissions, https://www.goldstandard.org/projects/climate-portfolio-variety-projects
On Mon, 14 Oct 2019 at 17:24, Osmar Valdebenito b1mbo.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Maybe it's cheap... for European participants in a conference. People coming from developing nations tend to live further and require longer trips to participate in events and conference, mostly hosted in Europe or the US. So, not only you are asking us to spend larger hours on flights but also pay (or make someone else pay more) for it. I calculated how much carbon offset costed for my Wikimania travel, using the websites offered at the WM wiki, and it wasn't 1 or 2 usd. It was 107 euros, around 10% or more of the cost of the trip. I'm all for making a greener Wikimedia movement, but we should do it not affecting those that, supposedly, we want to include more in our movement.
El sáb., 12 de oct. de 2019 a la(s) 11:27, Andrea Zanni ( zanni.andrea84@gmail.com) escribió:
I agree with Bence. Right now, offsetting is cheap, likely 1-2 percentage points of the cost
of
travel. Those money could be asked directly in the grant to the WMF, for example, because offsetting several tonnes in bulk is probably cheaper than doing
it
person by person.
But carbon offsetting is just one strategy. Those money could be also invested in charities that conserve rainforest (and thus native people,
and
thus native culture > perfectly aligned with Wikimedia goals), or manage
to
plant new trees and forests.
I know for sure that Wikimedia Deutschland has contacts with Ecosia¹, a search engine that plant trees with revenue from web ads. There are
surely
ways we could partner with them in reforestation projects, or other. And they surely know a lot more than us about carbon offsetting, so we could just ask for suggestions.
On Sat, Oct 12, 2019 at 10:00 AM Henry Wood henry.wood.1869@gmail.com wrote:
Mike
Paying for carbon offsets does not further Wikimedia’s goals.
Not directly, any more than paying for petrol or aviation fuel does. If you regard it as part of the cost of travel, and that travel does indeed further the Foundation's goals, then it seems reasonable to pay for it.
Henry
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