Skift Take
For the average consumer 'green' went by the wayside when the economy slumped. Now carbon credits have become something travel providers do in the background.
When airlines and tour operators first launched carbon offset programs in the mid-2000s, customers seemed eager to join.
Buying a carbon credit meant investing in a project that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere — essentially offsetting the emissions created by traveling.
But the hype surrounding these programs hasn't panned out. Today, consumers only offset about 2 percent of international flights, a figure that's likely to remain flat in the future, according to industry experts. Less than 1 percent of travelers choose tour packages that have offsetting options.
"In tourism, people started to talk a lot about the issue, but it's since faded away. Right now, nobody is talking about carbon offsets in the industry," said Dietrich Brockhagen, executive director of Atmosfair, a German climate organization that offers credits and develops related projects, including a biomass plant in India and a wind farm in Nicaragua.
Travel's Toll
Offset programs initially cropped up after the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the treaty under which the European Union and other industrialized countries — not including the United States — agreed to slash emissions. The
