Your Questions Answered

An offset is a greenhouse gas emissions reduction or removal that is used to counterbalance or compensate ('offset') for emissions from other activities. Voluntary offsets can be financed by organizations or individuals. The key criterion for an offset is that its greenhouse gas reduction would not have happened anyway i.e. is "additional" to business-as-usual activity.

There are two types of carbon offset markets;

1. The regulated compliance market which is linked to the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Agreement and to EU Emissions Trading Scheme - these 'accredited' carbon offsets can be traded and used to offset legally binding targets.
2. The voluntary carbon offset market which is not bound by regulation and allows individuals and organizations, which have no regulatory targets, to participate voluntarily in offsetting their carbon emissions.

Popoffsets is a voluntary offset scheme although we are running a campaign to achieve accreditation in the long term.

There are, in fact, many standards now operating in the voluntary offset market but with no common standard for comparison it becomes difficult for any individual to assess the level of efficiency.

Two standards appear to be gaining precedence, the Voluntary Carbon Standard and the Voluntary Gold Standard, both of which are supported by a wide range of different organizations, and OPT intends to review both standards and their suitability to our unique  project program in the near future.

We encourage you to do both, it's not "either-or" and offsetting should always be considered complementary to the need for you to reduce emissions yourself by adopting a greener lifestyle (insulating your home, cycling to work etc.,) - offsetting provides a way to balance out those emissions that you cannot reduce.

The European Commission website http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/campaign  together with http://www.mycarbonfootprint.eu give lots of tips about reducing your own carbon emissions, as do various government guidance documents around the world (although all ignore the most obvious - having small families through family planning!).

If you feel that all you are able to do is but a 'drop in the ocean' - remember that 'the ocean is made of drops'.

Reducing the population on the planet, through education, contraception and other reproductive healthcare measures, and women's empowerment, is a hugely important action that we can take to reduce our environmental impact.  It is vitally necessary, but not sufficient.  It is only one of a series of measures that the human race needs to take to live lightly on the planet in the future. We will all have to change the way that we live and consume resources - better to plan for change than for change to arrive unplanned.

World population is estimated to reach 7 billion by the end of 2011, having increased by 1 billion in just 12 years - all but 4% percent of this increase will be in the less developed countries (LDCs). The mid- 2009 estimate for the annual population increase is equivalent to a new city of 1.5 million people every week - somewhere. Each of these new cities eats up land destroying ever more habitats for wildlife.  Poverty cannot be alleviated anywhere without using more energy, primarily derived from burning oil, gas, coal or wood and hence making more greenhouse gases.  People in high resource countries do this far more than the poor are able to, so the climate change impact of one less rich child in a family is much greater than one poor one. But the ever-increasing millions of low-income consumers aspire (as is their right) to become prosperous. The question as asked assumes they remain in their state of poverty.... don't we want to "make poverty history"?

In short, one less birth into poverty is not only one less person to suffer poverty and the expected severe impacts of climate change, but also one less to produce more greenhouse gases in (hopefully) escaping poverty. In recent years millions of previously-poor Chinese have been doing just this: getting richer, so inevitably causing more CO₂ emissions, but without even getting close to the unfairly high per-person carbon footprints of Europe or North America. Therefore, contraception helps to combat climate change but it is not a substitute for high emitters reducing their unfairly high emissions. These are two sides of the same coin.    

Not at all. Climate change is a life-threatening world issue for everybody. It's impacts do not acknowledge national boundaries or social frontiers:  though floods, hurricanes and food shortages are already having and will continue to have a much bigger impact on developing countries. A report in July 2009 by the Population Reference Bureau (www.prb.org) estimated that over 200 million women have an unmet need for family planning and the UN Population Fund's report Adding it up: The benefits of investing in sexual and reproductive Healthcare found that meeting all unmet need would reduce unwanted births by 72%. 

The OPT Report Fewer Emitters, Lower Emissions, Less Cost illustrates that over 5 giga tonnes of CO₂ output could be abated in the USA between 2010 and 2050 compared to 2 giga tonnes in India, through investments in family planning. It is clear, however, that when women have access to family planning, education and reproductive healthcare, together with greater empowerment, then birth rates drop. The dilemma now facing ‘developing' nations is that following the ‘developed' nations' model of consumerism and pursuit of economic growth at any cost as a ‘given', en route to population stability, is as flawed as the ‘developed' nations pretence that things can continue as they are for ever.

PopOffsets is totally opposed to coercion or “control”. It’s immoral and unnecessary given that an estimated 80 million conceptions each year are unwanted. We seek to give people greater choice over their lives, to deliver better health, empowerment, and well-being. This is best done by removing the many barriers (including simple availability) that prevent so many from being able to decide freely how many children they have. Starting with those estimated 200m (FAQ 7) who want no more, yet have no modern contraceptive methods available and accessible to them.

This question repeats the conventional economic wisdom - that couples in resource poor settings actively plan to have many children to compensate for high child mortality, to provide labour for the family, and to care for parents as they age. Those factors are real and certainly enhance the cultural acceptance of large families but economists overlook the fact that potentially fertile sex happens more often than the minimum needed for intentional conceptions i.e. having a large family is not usually an actively planned decision - it is mainly an outcome of human sexuality. Something active therefore could be done to separate sex from conceptions—namely, contraception. But if a woman wants a smaller family – and many now do – access to contraception is often difficult. Numerous barriers to access for many women in the world include, for example, lack of empowerment and abuse of their rights by husbands, partners, relatives, or from religious authorities.

The evidence is clear in many different societies that demand for contraception increases (and family sizes shrink) when it becomes available, accessible, and accompanied by correct information about its appropriateness and safety; and when barriers are removed. This is consistent with normal consumer behaviour.

We can learn from the “success stories”. Many countries (the list includes Costa Rica, Cuba, Iran, South Korea, Mexico, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, Vietnam), have in recent years halved their average family sizes in about the same time as China did but without the pressure China exerts on couples.

In Iran, where average family size is now around 2 (replacement level), all couples must learn about family planning before the government certifies their marriage – and contraception is endorsed by the pronouncements of religious leaders. The media can help immensely. There is much more on this successful yet voluntary approach in the OPT publication Youthquake.

The PopOffsets project does not direct funding towards abortion services. Good contraception reduces the number of abortions - we would like to make abortion history..

There are plenty of other highly relevant areas to which direct funding will be allocated:

• Contraceptive services and supplies
• Sex and relationships education
• Family planning advice

An 'absent' human being (i.e. an avoided birth) cannot produce CO₂ - nor can the 'non-existent decendants, in perpetuity. The simplicity of this logic takes away all guesswork - but clearly more work needs to be carried out on quantifying this methodology of CO ₂ reductions.

The escalation of CO₂, like most other environmental impacts, can be directly linked to the following key factors - the growth of the industrial society, consumerism and the growth of population.  This is the classic "I=PAT" function (Impact = Population x Affluence (consumption) x Technology). This triple whammy, exacerbated by the pursuit of economic growth almost at any cost, is causing increasingly rapid and large scale climatic and environmental change.

The logic is simple - a population no longer growing and making better use of the Earth's resources through "greener" technologies and lifestyles, on a more equitable basis, is the only way forward to a healthy, sustainable planet.      

There are three key issues:

Firstly – the calculation of carbon emissions:

We are not attempting to set an exact figure for your carbon emission calculations – not least because it’s practically impossible. To calculate how much CO₂ each person emits we would need to know every nuance of their life – what they had for breakfast and how fast they drive in their car – this is clearly impractical for us and for any other carbon offset scheme. Nevertheless a multi-million dollar market exists in carbon offsets and we are simply, and uniquely, raising the issue of the carbon (and environmental) impact of growing populations. We have therefore chosen to use figures provided by the United Nations Development Program www.hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/data/climatechange. which shows each country’s CO₂ emission divided by the number of people in that country - the discrepancy being that a country’s CO₂ outputs include all industrial and commercial activity – even if the result of that production is not used in that country (e.g. cars made for export). So, until we have more comprehensive data we are using a ‘carbon conscience’ approach – not a scientific approach.

Secondly – the effectiveness of family planning in reducing carbon emssions:

We acknowledge more work needs to be done to develop and refine the initial research in the report Fewer Emitters, Lower Emissions, Less Cost but, in simple terms, an ‘absent’ human (i.e. one whose birth has been avoided) cannot produce CO₂ (nor can their ‘absent’ descendants). Family planning and education has been shown, through conclusive evidence, to slow down the pace of population growth and contribute towards national development. Conversely all other development programs are doomed to fail, ultimately, if human numbers, rich and poor, keep rising indefinitely.

Finally – the price of carbon offsetting through PopOffsets:

PopOffsets is a fundraising program that recognizes that a huge carbon offset market exists – whether we like it or not – and it’s a market which ignores family planning. We are attempting to focus attention on the clear viability of family planning as a practical and cost-effective carbon reduction strategy. This approach avoids the so-called high tech solutions which, in themselves, have the potential to exacerbate other environmental problems.

We are not attempting to quantify CO₂ savings through family planning – we acknowledge that more work needs to be done in this area.

We have used a figure of carbon offset priced at £10 per tonne (approximately $15 or €12) which we feel is, potentially, realistic.

The project will grow as people, organizations and politicians begin to recognize that tackling population growth is the key way of addressing CO₂ reduction and environmental degradation.

Few would argue with the statement that ‘population cannot continue to increase indefinitely’. But how do we define the limit? Using a tool called Ecological Footprinting*, which provides a snapshot of human ecological impact under given circumstances, it is possible to throw some light on this question

What is a sustainable population for Earth? – less than now!

According to the new (and still imprecise) science of footprinting, our planet’s environmental footprint is now, already, over 25% greater than its total biological resources can sustainably supply.

Assuming the global biocapacity and average footprint [F1] remain stable at the 2003 level, then, to become sustainable, the world population needs to contract to a maximum of 5.1 billion. In other words, humanity is already overshooting the total for whom the earth can continue to provide, long term.

For a ‘modest’ world footprint of 3.3 global hectares per capita (an increase in the average footprint, which of course is essential if the poorest countries are to develop, and without allowances for biodiversity or change of biocapacity), the sustainable population is 3.4 billion

For a ‘modest’ world footprint of 3.3 gha/cap, plus a 12% allowance for biodiversity (but none for attrition of biocapacity), the sustainable population is 3.0 billion.

For a ‘modest’ world footprint of 3.3 gha/cap, plus a 20% margin for biodiversity and attrition of biocapacity then the sustainable population is 2.7 billion

The funds are held in a special ‘PopOffsets’ account of the Optimum Population Trust.

A funding committee of the Optimum Population Trust is responsible for assessing each funding application and, following due diligence audits, provide funding to approved organizations' projects. Many family planning  organizations around the world already provide contraceptives to those who need them and, for example, providing a wider distribution of additional contraceptives to ensure a greater capture is one simple example of how funding can be used. Funding case studies appear on the website.

We use all donated funds less minimal/unavoidable costs for directly supporting family planning and wider reproductive health programs, and sex and relationships education to help to meet, in particualr, the needs of over 200 million women worldwide who do not have access to family planning.

We also recognize the power of social media and effective campaigning to change attitudes and values. We intend to develop a program of action to promote the case for optimum population as the best means of ensuring a peaceful, equitable future for mankind and a thriving and diverse natural environment.  This means bringing about cultural, attitudinal and behavioural change by promoting the advantages of greater equity, security and access to resources for future generations through supporting an optimum population.

If you have a project for which you would like us to consider funding please go to our Contact Us page

Most companies have no legal obligation to offset their CO₂ outputs and do not need to use accredited carbon offsets (there is no such thing as an ‘accredited’ scheme). Schemes which provide accredited carbon offsets operate within a regulated compliance market under, for example, the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.

Many companies choose to offset their carbon emissions in order to meet their corporate social responsibility. We recognize that convincing organizations to use the PopOffsets carbon offsets requires them to be objective, matter-of-fact, visionary and innovative - not least because of the many taboos around the issue. Conventionally, the whole business world is based upon the principle of growth through greater and greater sales (to more and more people). We believe that the more forward-looking companies, who can look beyond simple economics to the biology – and the beauty - of a finite planet, who look intelligently at the carbon question and acknowledge the environmental and economic risks of rapidly growing and unsustainable population, will choose to support the PopOffsets project.

We must not assume that poor people will remain poor, they have every right to improve their standards of living - which would involve greater CO₂ emissions and pressure on the planet. In addition, activities such as forest burning which creates about one fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions, is largely forced through population pressure - and this includes the poorest people who are forced to clear forests for agriculture, to feed their families.

Absolutely not. Of course the top priority remains for rich individuals and countries to massively reduce their own emissions but the poor rightly aspire to become rich too: and they will develop faster, and reduce their collective emissions as they do so, with stable populations. Everyone is both a carbon emitter and a victim of climate change. All population growth not only increases total emissions (notably in developed countries) but increases the number of potential victims needing help to adapt (notably women in developing countries) and inhibits sustainable development (notably in the least developed countries).

We can't reduce our collective carbon footprint if we keep increasing the number of feet - we would all just be running up a down escalator. That's why we want to help stabilize populations in ALL countries.