LinkedIn·Tuesday, 18 August 2026·9d ago

Kris Verheyen, a former colleague of mine, raises an important question in this article about carbon emissions and whether — and how — they…

Ingmar Nopens

Kris Verheyen, a former colleague of mine, raises an important question in this article about carbon emissions and whether — and how — they can actually be compensated. It connects to something I believe is missing from much of the net-zero discussion: the carbon debt we are accumulating while waiting for 2050. The atmosphere responds to cumulative emissions — the area under the curve — not to the date at which a company eventually reaches net zero. And this is where I disagree with the often-heard argument: “first reduce, then compensate.” Of course we need to reduce emissions as fast as realistically possible. But every serious sustainability roadmap already identifies emissions that will remain hard to abate or unavoidable for many years. So why wait until 2040 or 2050 to compensate for something we already know we will emit? Reduce and compensate should happen in parallel. There is, however, a crucial distinction in how we compensate. Buying a promise that someone will remove a tonne of CO₂ in 2040 or 2050 is very different from compensating with carbon that has already been removed and durably sequestered. The first is effectively taking on carbon debt: we emit with certainty today and promise to repay it with uncertain future removal. And, like financial debt, waiting can come with interest. CO₂ emitted today contributes to warming while that debt remains outstanding. That warming can weaken natural carbon sinks and contribute to additional emissions through forest degradation, wildfires and permafrost thaw. So the original tonne may not be the whole cost of carrying the debt. Meanwhile, future removal may rely on technologies and capacity that do not yet exist at anything close to the required scale. That is a massive bet on the future. There is another approach: sequestration first. That principle is at the heart of Greentripper+: don’t use an uncertain promise of future removal as permission for a certain emission today. Use carbon that has already been sequestered. If a company already knows that, despite aggressive reductions, it will have unavoidable residual emissions for decades, why allow that carbon debt — and its potential interest — to accumulate until 2050? The approach seems straightforward: Reduce emissions as fast as possible. Compensate foreseeable hard-to-abate emissions in parallel. Use carbon already sequestered rather than promises of future removal. Reduction remains essential. Compensation is not an alternative to reduction. But neither should “reduce first” become an argument for postponing action on emissions we already know we cannot eliminate in time. https://lnkd.in/dKhN3CcV Don’t wait until 2050 to repay a carbon debt we can start addressing today — especially when that debt may accumulate interest. 550.000 ton CO2 vrijgekomen bij brand in Hoge Venen, maar compenseren met nieuw bos is zo goed als onhaalbaar | VRT NWS Nieuws https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2026/08/17/vrijgekomen-co2-hoge-venen-compenseren-bos-aanplanten/