Cheap cheats

CARBON OFFSETTING is in vogue. The practice involves giving money to a green charity that takes action, such as planting trees or building solar panels, to stop emissions entering the atmosphere or to remove them from it. In 2018 around $296m was spent buying the equivalent of 98m tonnes of CO₂ offsets in the “voluntary” market (ie, outside government-mandated schemes). That is roughly twice the volume and value from the year before, and a seven-year high, according to Forrest Trends, a lobby group.