Anger as offset scheme is scrapped

摘要

The Government has closed its programme for providing assurance for the quality of carbon offsets due to a low take-up of the scheme among businesses. The Quality Assurance Scheme (QAS) will be cancelled next month and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has written to all businesses that are accredited to the programme to let them know. The QAS offered assurance that carbon offsets bought on the voluntary market were cancelled or retired to stop them being sold again. It began in 2009, but DECC said that the decision to close the scheme was because take-up had been "disappointingly low". Renewables key to energy needs The panel established to enforce the United Nations' work against climate change believes that 80% of our energy needs could be met by renewables by the middle of this century.