US plan to tap businesses for green finance meets resistance

When it comes to helping poor nations cope with climate change, the United States government left its wallet at home. So it hopes its friend, big business, can help pick up the tab.

Unable to persuade Congress or the American public to spend billions of dollars more a year in climate financial aid, the US government is trying to make it easier for private corporations to send cash to the developing world in exchange for looking green at home.

...Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, a climate and energy think tank, called carbon offsets an “accounting trick” that paves the way for big polluters to carry on polluting.

Big cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in both wealthy Northern nations and developing countries in the global South are what’s needed, Adow said, “not rich polluting companies in the north paying for the privilege of continuing to destroy the planet.”