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Funding effective forest projects in developing countries is an obvious challenge, but offsets are not any solution. I remember way back (COP2?), Brazil proposed the 'Clean Development Fund', in which southern governments would get some money from northern governments, based on historical responsibility for emissions. Most of the Envi-NGOs protested strongly against equity-based "tropical hot air" transfers to governments, reckoning there were too many bad governments, preferring a project-based system which they could influence better. So this morphed into the CDM, but the value of such credits was dependent on the Kyoto market. The back deal in Kyoto (I remember, was there) had been that US (watched by many NGOs and journalists) agrees a toughish target while Russia (watched by almost nobody) got a very weak one - the original "hot air", then one would buy credits from the other. After Bush pulled US out, the Russian (and other E.Europe) credits remained, which collapsed the market including CDM. But as the story posted here tells, the phoenix was reborn once, and probably will be again. The people who decide these things fly around on a cushion of "hot air" all the time - it's how they feel comfortable. In the final plenary of COPs (have sat through enough) they always clap a lot, because whatever the numbers (or lack of them) this flying circus show must go on. And those are UN diplomats, now imagine the "voluntary" business version in private.