Carbon Offsets To Alleviate Poverty (COTAP) fights climate change and global poverty. When you buy carbon offsets through COTAP, your carbon emissions are being balanced by Plan Vivo-certified forestry projects which create life-changing income for smallholder farmers who live on less than $2 per day.
Carbon Offsets Are a Pragmatic and Immediate Way to Take Action
Carbon offsets are an established market-based tool through which individuals and organizations can support projects which counteract the carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution which they haven’t yet been able to eliminate themselves. When you buy carbon offsets, you are addressing your CO2 emissions (from driving, flying, and home energy use) which are your personal contribution to global warming, known as your carbon footprint.
By buying offsets, you are taking responsibility for your personal contribution to global warming by indirectly compensating others for the performing the service of counteracting the emissions which you haven’t yet been able to eliminate. When you offset through COTAP, you’re going a step further by also transforming livelihoods of some of the poorest communities on Earth.
Offsetting As Part of Your Climate Action Plan
Offsetting should be done alongside other equally important personal global warming actions, like advocating for cleaner energy sources and reducing your carbon footprint. Offsetting, advocacy, and reduction efforts all work together. For example, the process of measuring offsetting your emissions helps to reveal opportunities for reducing your footprint as well as areas where we need cleaner energy sources.
How COTAP Carbon Offsets Change Lives
COTAP pools carbon offset transactions from individuals and organizations and supports projects which compensate farmers for planting and maintaining trees on under-utilized portions of their land. Plantings and tree growth are monitored and verified by third parties, and farmer payments are front-loaded and performance-based, paid over a period of 7 to 10 years for plantings which will sequester CO2 over 25 or more years.
Affordability & Tax-deductibility
Choose from the Quick and Easy offsetting levels at right, and your tonnes will be allocated according to our average $9.90/tonne rate and distributed evenly across our four projects in Nicaragua, Mozambique, Uganda, and Malawi. To customize your number of tonnes of CO2 and what portion of your transaction goes to each of our projects, please see the Buy Carbon Offsets section of our menu above. COTAP is a 501(c)3 non-profit, so offset transactions are 100% tax-deductible for U.S. residents.
Learn More About COTAP
To learn more, please see the Mission, Projects, How It Works, How We’re Different, Transparency, and Standards sections of our site and see our above menu.
