What are we doing?
On Sunday November 8 2020, Sarah and John are taking on the SDCCU OC Half Marathon! Running the beautiful course from the beach to their favorite place in the world – the Orange County Fairgrounds! This isn’t just a new-year’s resolution coming true- although it IS a new-year’s resolution coming true-, and this is more than just the next step in the OC Fair 5k Fun Run – although it is that too – this is an opportunity to help raise awareness for the power of Carbon Offsets to help fight global warming AND global poverty through the organization known as COTAP!
Why we are doing it: to raise awareness and funds for COTAP!
Man-made global warming is real, happening now and calls for widespread, creative and immediate action if we are to win this desperate “Race Against Time”. Unfortunately, we all contribute to the problem (either directly or indirectly) in some way, so don’t we all have a responsibility to be a part of the solution as well? We are seeing dramatic increases in the severity and frequency of severe weather events such as droughts, floods, super storms and heatwaves; along with the increased rate of global ice melting which is a real threat to the stable climate that we depend on in so many ways. This is about much more than just saving the polar bears (although they are important too!). We can’t help but think that we all need to do our bit if we are to avoid runaway global warming and even more environmental catastrophes that will be on an even grander scale and pose even bigger problems for future generations.
About Our Event
Date: Sunday, November 8, 2020
Location: Orange County, California, USA
Our fundraising goal and where your donation goes
We want to strive to offset the carbon emissions of an entire 20 people for 2020! We are aiming to raise $3,465 dollars for the amazing work that COTAP undertakes! By supporting our COTAP fundraiser (before or after our event) you are effectively offsetting some or all of your annual CO2 emissions. As a guide, the average American’s annual CO2 emissions are about 17.5 tonnes per year. Furthermore, you are effectively contributing towards four projects involving the planting of trees, protection of forests and supporting developing communities within projects in Nicaragua, Uganda, India, Fiji, Indonesia, and Mexico.How to support our fundraiser
Please donate through this page using the widget at right (at top if you’re on your mobile device or tablet) to make a donation that goes towards our goal of raising $3,465 for COTAP through our endurance event. Donations can be as tiny or as big as you wish – all will be gratefully received.How it works
When you purchase a COTAP carbon offset, you are contributing towards accountable and transparent reforestation and forest protection while creating income for rural communities in Nicaragua, Uganda, India, Fiji, Indonesia, and Mexico! COTAP allocates 90% ($13.50 per tonne) of your offset transaction to these Projects are certified under the voluntary Plan Vivo carbon standard, which requires that projects directly share a minimum of 60% of carbon offset revenues with participating local communities. In other words, every tonne you offset creates at least $8.10 in income for the world’s poorest people.
How Your Climate Change Action Also Addresses Inequality
Transparency
Tonnes offset on this page will be evenly allocated to all COTAP projects. You will receive a detailed offset acknowledgement, and your tonnes will be included in COTAP’s public carbon credit retirements on the Markit Environmental Registry like this. You can track COTAP’s progress and download projects’ annual reports, which contain detailed accounting of payments to communities, in our Transparency section.
Additional Program Details
COTAP pools purchases of carbon offsets by individuals and organizations to support certified afforestation and reforestation projects which make payments to farmers in exchange for the planting and long-term maintenence of trees on their land. All of our projects are certified by Plan Vivo, the longest-standing forestry carbon standard in the world, and the only standard which requires that projects have detailed plans for direct carbon revenue sharing with participating communities.
Plantings and tree growth are monitored and verified, and farmers receive front-loaded, performance-based payments over a period of 7 to 10 years for carbon sequestration which is projected to take place over the course of 25 or more years. In addition, farmers benefit from their trees’ fruit and nut crop income, increased food and fuel security, improved soil quality, and reduced erosion.
More About Carbon Offsetting
Carbon offsets are the market-based climate change solution through which you take responsibility for your unavoidable CO2 emissions from driving, flying, and home energy use. By buying offsets, you are taking responsibility for your personal contribution to climate change by indirectly compensating others for 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 should be done alongside other equally important personal climate change 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 your emissions helps to reveal opportunities for reducing your footprint as well as areas where we need cleaner energy sources.
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.
