Talk:Carbon offsets and credits

message: I'm concerned by the amount of primary and non-independent sources used. EY Net Zero Centre's parent company sells consulting services relate to carbon offsets. The Nature Conservancy is directly involved in selling offsets, making them an unusable source. Same for "Flowcarbon.com". I've removed a few.
The first paragraph of  repeats marketing claims by an industry trade group. The  section is based on sources that don't evaluate effectiveness (like the World Bank), and sources with industry ties.
Coming across this article, I was surprised that it was so positive towards carbon offsets, which seem to have an execrable reputation in news reports for being largely worthless. For example, we discuss issues with forestry credits, which is good, but a Bloomberg investigation found that the "most suspect type of offset" are renewable energy ones, which are among the most widespread and which we mention nearly uncritically. Maybe our WP:BESTSOURCES aren't as negative as newspapers, but this article likely has neutrality issues. DFlhb (talk) 14:37, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that this aspect would benefit from further work. I wonder if the section title "limitations" is already not ideal as it sounds rather soft. Also, I think the lead should have a bit more content about the challenges and criticisms (e.g. in its last paragraph). I wonder if it would be good to have two separate sections: one on challenges and one on criticism, a bit like what was recently implemented at Sustainable Development Goals. EMsmile (talk) 14:47, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that the popularity of credits and offsets has evolved over time: I'm studying how the positive versus negative reputation has evolved in time and will work to include a more historical perspective on their popularity. For example, this site refers to them as having a "checked history".   1241vanpan (talk) 13:05, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  That sounds good. EMsmile (talk) 00:21, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I meant checkered history. I am planning on focussing on this in upcoming edits.  1241vanpan (talk) 11:53, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-independent sources and neutrality 

message: I am planning to add a list of terms to the Definitions section. This would involve moving some of the "general features" defined in the next section forward to the definitions section, and then adding more terms. 1241vanpan (talk) 12:58, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not sure that I agree with the changes you have done there. That list of terminology had become rather long and cumbersome. E.g. there's no need to include the Kyoto and Paris Agreements in that list. I have shortened the list now and moved some of it to the relevant places where they fitted (either in the main text or in the lead). I am still not sure if a "terminology list" is what we need or whether the previous "general features" section wasn't in fact better. I think it's not very encyclopedic or Wikipedia-style to have a long list of terms and their explanations at the start of an article. EMsmile (talk) 00:25, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I also think the earlier presentation of these ideas in an “origins and general features” section was a better approach. We already have a “definitions” section, so to add a “terminology” section on top of that seems confusing - I think the items in the new “terminology” section are better described as general features. Dtetta (talk) 20:12, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've changed it now to "common features" but I still am not sure that this section really works well for this article. EMsmile (talk) 16:27, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what the best title would be for the section. But the section is a very useful, if not essential, background to the topic that is not readily found here or elsewhere.  I'd  like to see the co-benefits and co-detriments mentioned together somewhere in the article. I had them in this section in an earlier version to emphasize that they shouldn't be considered independently of each other. 1241vanpan (talk) 13:00, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

text: The section could readily be recast as a paragraph that includes the same information rather than bullets with definitions. If this makes sense I could rewrite it in that form. 1241vanpan (talk) 13:21, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definitions versus general features