After reading about carbon offsets on davidsuzuki.org, I decided to check the prices for the “Gold Standard” vendors they listed*:

planetair.ca – $38, CAD $43.30 with taxes (site includes emission calculators for air travel, road travel and home)

myclimate.org – SFr. 40.00, about $35 CAD.

sustainabletravelinternational.org – $16.12

climatefriendly.com – $19.93

atmosfair.de -  $29.31

Not all carbon offsets are created equal, but these are the best in the world. Clearly, these organizations are still learning to find cheaper ways to finance green projects. This is both expected, and a good thing; it’s the whole point of creating a trade mechanism for these credits.

(*) Not all websites give you a straight price per ton. PlanetAir, MyClimate and ClimateFriendly were all easy to use. The other two required using their calculator to get a price per ton:

• For Sustainable Travel, I picked calculated a package of 4.2098 tons of emissions for $64.20, or $16.12 CAD per ton (today’s exchange rate).
• For Atmosfair, I picked a flight that resulted in 4.1 tons of emissions for 83 Euros, CAD $29.31 per ton.