GE credit card: spend $9,000 to go carbon neutral

GE has launched a new credit card that allocates 1% of all your spending onto carbon offsetting projects (or 1/2 a percent for those skinflints who still want some cash back).

According to the site’s calculations, spending $750 a month — just $9,000 a year, which is what some people pay to wash their car, as it happens — would effectively offset the 10 metric tons of direct emissions that GE reckons the average American is responsible for.

All this makes Greenbang wonder what the average European or Asian would have to spend, in order to offset their emissions? $500 a month? $200 a month?

Anyway, it sounds like a nice project. Although, as this comment points out, it does create an incentive for people to spend more in the first place, which boosts emissions anyway.