Problems and Improvements Affecting Local Government Carbon Offset Programs

A carbon offset system enabling transfer of mitigated greenhouse gas emissions out of boundaries to emission rights has been used to make emission trade more flexible in emission trading schemes (ETSs). Environmental infrastructure in local governments falls under ETSs and credits can be bought with local governments’ budgets. Local governments operate various greenhouse gas mitigation projects to reduce the cost of credits. Mitigation projects can be used as credits when the methodology is registered as a carbon offset system. However, the methodologies can only be registered as a carbon offset system under strict conditions. Lack of expertise among government employees makes it harder to register a mitigation project as a carbon offset. Based on four studies that analyzed carbon offset systems among local governments, this study analyzed types of carbon offset systems and major mitigation projects among local governments and derived a problem related to carrying carbon offset systems, and developed a decision‐making tree to solve this problem.