The Great Carbon Credit Con

[Crazy Dazz]

For some bizarre reason in Perth, we have Gas Resellers (much like the NBN). They don't have to do anything, don't even need a physical footprint in WA, they just send you the bill.
They all offer some level of discount to the stipulated tariff, so I suppose that's a good thing. And they offer various little perks, like flybuys, free Amazon Prime, etc.
Now the mob I went with, had another little lure, they claim that 25% of their energy is from renewables.
Obviously I called BS on that, I KNOW where the gas comes from.
at which point the customer service person admitted that actually they just pay a fee to be able to claim this. They wouldn't say how much, but I have to assume it's peanuts. They were already in front on price compared to the Flybuys and Velocity offers, and they paid my Amazon bill for a year.
And this isn't some option that I pay more for, it's gratis.

So to me, the obvious question is "why not pay half a cent more and claim 100% renewable?"
But would that make the BS too obvious?
This notion that we can solve all of the world's carbon emission problems just by paying a few cents in the dollar for "Carbon Credits"? Something just doesn't add up!

Logically this leaves only one of three possibilities:

1. We don't have to worry about Carbon Emissions or Fossil Fuels. Just plant a few trees and the pronlem is solved.
2. "Carbon Credits" aren't what we think they are.
3. Somebody , somewhere, is cooking the books. Either double-dipping and claiming credits on renewables, grossly overestimating the carbon locked up, outright lying, or selling their own energy from carbon-neutral courses, and then also selling the credits.