The world has just celebrated the annual Earth Day on April 22, 2024. Like all the other countries, Cambodia is on top of its green initiatives, especially in continuously boosting the nationwide utilization of electric vehicles to foster a cleaner and more sustainable future. However, no matter how much effort one country exerts in mitigating the effects of climate change, there are still causes far bigger than single-use plastics. One of those is when billionaires travel on their private jets.

To illustrate this issue further, let’s put global pop icon Taylor Swift under this microscope. With her current globe-trotting for the “Eras Tour”, she has flown more or less 30,500 kilometers on her private jet, which experts estimate to amount to 200,000 pounds of carbon emission. Other well-known celebrities are also big contributors to this, such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Beyoncé. Even the Olympic Games and United Nations Conferences are also scrutinized for their contribution to climate change, since it gets people to travel across the world for the event.

While we cannot blame these personalities for using private jets, since some might argue that going commercial may pose a safety risk both for them and for spectators, we cannot deny that this adds up to the snowballing effects of climate change.

There must be some way of mitigating the skyrocketing figures of carbon emissions, right? Well that’s where the so-called “Carbon Credit” enters the market. Carbon Credit or Carbon Offsets is a way that private institutions have put into place in order to compensate for the carbon footprint that, for example, a traveling business person emits. However, carbon offsetting is currently loosely regulated and is subject to further abuse if not monitored accordingly.

Carbon offsetting programs include reforestation, building renewable energy, carbon-storing agricultural practices, and waste and landfill management. For example, carbon offset payments may go to tree-planting activities, since trees take in carbon dioxide and may naturally decrease the amount of carbon emissions. Some of the abovementioned personalities pay off their carbon credits, such as Gates, who says that he purchases carbon offsets and supports clean technologies and sustainable initiatives. Swift’s camp also claims that she is purchasing double of the carbon credits that her tour accumulates to cover all of her tour travel.

Although carbon offsetting is an existing option to balance out one’s carbon footprint, it is undeniable that the best way to cut this off is to live sustainably and responsibly. However big or small of an effort that we make, we can only hope that our collective actions will soon pay off for a greener and healthier future.

By: Charlotte Mae C. Martin