Climate warning

More than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets are found to be worthless!

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Kia Krond

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Verra

Climate warning
A joint investigation by the Guardian, Die Zeit and SourceMaterial has found that carbon offset projects run by Verra, the largest provider of forest carbon offsets, were largely ineffective in reducing deforestation and had little impact on reducing carbon emissions. The investigation found that only a small number of Verra's rainforest projects showed evidence of deforestation reductions, with further analysis indicating that 94% of the credits had no benefit to the climate. It also raised concerns about human rights issues in at least one of the offsetting projects.

Verra, which operates several leading environmental standards for climate action and sustainable development, disputes the findings and argues that the conclusions reached by the studies are incorrect and question their methodology. The findings pose serious questions for companies that are depending on offsets as part of their net-zero strategies.

Excerpt from the Guardian article:
Barbara Haya, the director of the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project, has been researching carbon credits for 20 years, hoping to find a way to make the system function. She said: “The implications of this analysis are huge. Companies are using credits to make claims of reducing emissions when most of these credits don’t represent emissions reductions at all. Rainforest protection credits are the most common type on the market at the moment. And it’s exploding, so these findings really matter. But I’m starting to give up on that. I started studying carbon offsets 20 years ago studying problems with protocols and programs. Here I am, 20 years later having the same conversation. We need an alternative process. The offset market is broken.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed-forest-carbon-offsets-biggest-provider-worthless-verra-aoe?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other





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