I've looked into this area.
I agree with the author that current sources of carbon offsets are poor and sketchy. However, that's not to say that people aren't working on more promising methods. Direct air capture and growing and sinking seaweed are two things that I think definitely pass the additionality aspect.
A big problem, I think, is that the market doesn't really differentiate between these, and that there are no strong regulatory pressures to buy "good" credits. We don't have a carbon tax in the US, and we don't have anything that pressures companies to say, if we want to buy offsets, that we only buy "good" offsets.
To people who say we need to move off fossil fuels - yes, but how do we do it? We can't just move our physical processes from A to B process.
It seems to me that imposing economic costs for every extra unit of carbon emitted, and only allowing high-quality offsets to subtract that, is the best incentive to move forward.
I agree that offsets based on sequestration, as you mention, are a completely legitimate tool. I mentioned that briefly in the post, but didn't dwell on it as the post was getting too long already.
The deep problem with the more common "avoided emissions" credits is not that they're low quality (e.g. "protecting" a forest that might just burn down) -- though some are indeed low quality. The deep problem is that if I pay you to halt your emissions, who is going to pay me to halt mine? That's the shell game aspect. We start out with two emitters, we halt one, we never do anything about the other. One emitter is "done" because they're no longer emitting, and the other emitter is "done" because they've purchased an offset. The model is broken at its core.
I completely agree with you on avoided emissions. I think these should just not be counted. I just hope that going forward, people don't lump all carbon offsets into one bucket and say "they're all a scam". I feel like we need more regulation here.
A big problem, I think, is that the market doesn't really differentiate between these, and that there are no strong regulatory pressures to buy "good" credits. We don't have a carbon tax in the US, and we don't have anything that pressures companies to say, if we want to buy offsets, that we only buy "good" offsets.
To people who say we need to move off fossil fuels - yes, but how do we do it? We can't just move our physical processes from A to B process.
It seems to me that imposing economic costs for every extra unit of carbon emitted, and only allowing high-quality offsets to subtract that, is the best incentive to move forward.