I think the extent to which I agree on this depends pretty heavily on context. If we’re talking about a major company which wants to use offsets to claim that it’s carbon neutral, then inelasticity with respect to cost makes sense (though even then I’m not totally convinced the elasticity is literally 0). I think this is importantly not true when it comes to, for lack of a better phrase “retail” offsetters.
i.e. the sort of people who might want to offset their yearly carbon emissions, or a flight that they feel guilty about. In this case, I think presenting a very expensive option as being best risks causing them to choose nothing at all rather than either a cheaper offset or offsetting as much as they can afford.
In practice, I think everyone would much rather this sort of donor was steered away from offsets altogether, but in the case where they aren’t, I think cost effectiveness makes sense. This logic seems to weakly apply to companies as well, in the sense that it may be one or two people pushing the comany to make a commitment from the inside, and I can see the probability that those people are successful being at least somewhat dependent on the size of the ask.
I think the extent to which I agree on this depends pretty heavily on context. If we’re talking about a major company which wants to use offsets to claim that it’s carbon neutral, then inelasticity with respect to cost makes sense (though even then I’m not totally convinced the elasticity is literally 0). I think this is importantly not true when it comes to, for lack of a better phrase “retail” offsetters.
i.e. the sort of people who might want to offset their yearly carbon emissions, or a flight that they feel guilty about. In this case, I think presenting a very expensive option as being best risks causing them to choose nothing at all rather than either a cheaper offset or offsetting as much as they can afford.
In practice, I think everyone would much rather this sort of donor was steered away from offsets altogether, but in the case where they aren’t, I think cost effectiveness makes sense. This logic seems to weakly apply to companies as well, in the sense that it may be one or two people pushing the comany to make a commitment from the inside, and I can see the probability that those people are successful being at least somewhat dependent on the size of the ask.