The market for carbon offsets shrank dramatically last year, falling from $1.9bn in 2022 to $723m in 2023, a new report has found. The drop came after a series of scientific and media reports found many offsetting schemes do nothing to mitigate the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. The research by Ecosystem Marketplace, found the market had shrunk 61%. It attributed the contraction to a flurry of studies and media reports that concluded millions of offsets were “worthless”, with some projects linked to human rights concerns. Each carbon credit is meant to represent the reduction or removal of one tonne of CO₂ emissions removals or reductions. …Offsets generated by schemes protecting rainforests, the most popular type, lost 62% of their value between 2022 and 2023. These schemes were the focus of a joint investigation by the Guardian, which found more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets from a large sample of projects from Verra are worthless.