Key takeaways
- Unlike carbon, biodiversity cannot be measured, compared, or offset across locations
- A kingfisher in Kent is not equivalent to a parrot in Peru
- Biodiversity is inherently local and context-dependent
- Credit markets risk legitimizing habitat destruction rather than preventing it
- The fungibility assumption that underlies carbon markets does not apply to ecosystems
The problem with biodiversity credits
Carbon credit markets, despite their flaws, rest on a defensible premise: a ton of CO₂ has the same warming effect regardless of where it is emitted or absorbed. This fungibility allows for trading. Biodiversity has no such property.
Each ecosystem is unique. A wetland in Singapore supports different species than a wetland in Sweden. Destroying one and "offsetting" it by protecting another does not preserve biodiversity. It merely shuffles the deck chairs.
Biodiversity credit markets create a dangerous illusion: that nature can be priced, traded, and substituted. This framing invites developers to calculate the "cost" of destruction rather than question whether destruction should occur at all.
Why this matters
As biodiversity credit schemes proliferate, we risk repeating the mistakes of carbon markets at an even larger scale. The lesson from carbon credits is clear: when you create a market for offsets, you create an incentive to find the cheapest offsets rather than to reduce harm.
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