Exactly this. And the incentive it creates is very perverted. It would be much easier to just tax CO2 at the source, instead of this corruption prone system of carbon credits where you need to audit thousands of places instead of only one: the oil pipe.

I personally know of one that raised close to $100 million in financing, sold $50 million in "credits" to Microsoft, and the entire company turned out to be dumping concrete into the ocean to "sequester" the carbon.

The founders still blame "woke" scientists for outing their scheme and doubting their "science." Of course, neither founders have any prior scientific or engineering experience. It's maddening talking them. I've met never anyone who is both anti-science but calls themselves scientists. Huh?

EDIT: I should add that they have pivoted to AI, as you of course expected.