Mixed reaction to new carbon offset scheme

Reaction has been mixed to plans to help local businesses offset pollution.

Last week North East Mayor Kim McGuinness revealed a new carbon offsetting marketplace was being introduced in the region.

The scheme, which will launch in the spring, will allow businesses to offset their emissions by paying for credits which can be spent on green projects such as tree planting.

Some academics called it a "brilliant idea", while others said they were "doubtful" it would be a major driver of change.

Offsetting operates by companies buying "carbon credits".

This allows them to emit greenhouse gases while contributing to emission reduction projects.

Many such schemes involve firms in the Western world paying for tree planting and wetland creation in poorer parts of the world.

A North East Combined Authority (NECA) spokesperson said the key benefit of the scheme would be that credits would only pay for green projects based in the north-east of England.

"[Businesses] can see and feel for themselves the positive impact," the authority said.

But professor of geography at Durham University, Paul Langley, said he was worried the scheme would simply "allow emitters to delay more fundamental" change.

Harriet Bulkeley, also a professor of geography at the university, said the local focus of the proposals was "innovative" but questioned how the benefits of the environmental projects would be measured and monitored.

NECA said it would have a "robust" process to verify the projects trading on its marketplace.

It also said the scheme was "just one initiative" it was pursuing in order to tackle climate issues.

Newcastle University professor of accounting, Marwa Elnahass, said the idea was "commendable" but challenges remained including the ability to scale the scheme.

NECA said the region was home to some of the most "densely-packed manufacturing zones" in the country as well as its "wildest countryside and uplands" and so there was a "great deal of scope".

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