This completely misses the point, intentionally I suppose given this sentence:
" or currently wealthy countries succeeding above other countries"
This isn't about protecting forests. It's about a rich country offsetting its emissions by buying another countries industrial capacity in the form of carbon credits. It's taking a bribe from another country to stay poor. It's as if the United States started to pay China to turn factories off so they can turn more on. It's not just metaphorically colonial, it's literally the colonial economic model, capturing a resource, bringing the industry home (to Paris/London/Moscow in the olden days) and selling the produce back to the periphery. The only difference is the resource and land captured here is synthetic ("green credits"). There is nothing environmental about this, the emissions are constant. The planet does not care if you produce oil in Nigeria or Saudi Arabia.
Yeah, an environmentalist friend of mine told me this about my Terrapass offsets - which cost a fortune to take me to net zero. He said that I was just bribing someone so I could go on holiday. Most people agreed with him so I kinda went with it and stopped.
It's way cheaper to go on vacation now. I care about the environment and stuff but not enough to have a bunch of people tell me I'm bribing someone. And tbh, this is better. No one actually lectures you for going on vacation now.
If there is no way to build industry except through fossil fuels, we are doomed already. Otherwise poor countries can take money from carbon credits and build clean industry to start with, which is easier than rebuilding all the existing industry. Plus residents get many other important benefits from preserved forests and cleaner environment.
" or currently wealthy countries succeeding above other countries"
This isn't about protecting forests. It's about a rich country offsetting its emissions by buying another countries industrial capacity in the form of carbon credits. It's taking a bribe from another country to stay poor. It's as if the United States started to pay China to turn factories off so they can turn more on. It's not just metaphorically colonial, it's literally the colonial economic model, capturing a resource, bringing the industry home (to Paris/London/Moscow in the olden days) and selling the produce back to the periphery. The only difference is the resource and land captured here is synthetic ("green credits"). There is nothing environmental about this, the emissions are constant. The planet does not care if you produce oil in Nigeria or Saudi Arabia.