Strongest start for offset issuances and retirements in the past five years.
A total of 69.3 million offsets have been issued in the first two months of 2023, more than any other year of the past five years. This compares to the five-year average of 15.2 million issuances.
Offset retirements also started off strongly, with a total of 27.5 million retirements compared to the five-year average of 8.34 million. The strength in retirements is solely from the month of February which saw more than 21 million offsets retired, the most by far of the past five years, while January came in below average at 6.28 million.
Forestry and energy projects continue to dwarf other projects.
A notable change from the fourth quarter of 2022 is that energy project issuances have outpaced forestry issuances. While they are both normally the largest source of offsets, forestry issuances are generally more numerous. The percentage of offsets generated from alternative energy projects and emissions projects have more than halved from Q4, while agriculture and waste/landfill issuances are unchanged.
Bank of unused offsets continues to make record highs.
Issuances normally outpace retirements leading to a surplus of credits every month. This surplus or “bank” of unused offsets now stands at a total of 934.1 million tons. The bank increased by 41.84 million tons or 4.47% from December to February.