Over 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest certifier are worthless [Guardian]

Fund Fellow Founders Over 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest certifier are worthless [Guardian]

An investigation by the Guardian reveals over 90% of Verra's rainforest offset credits likely "phantom credits," posing serious questions for companies relying on offsets and prompting re-evaluation of the world's leading carbon standard.

Summary:

An investigation by the Guardian, Die Zeit, and SourceMaterial reveals that over 90% of Verra's rainforest offset credits are likely "phantom credits" and do not result in genuine carbon reductions. This poses serious questions for companies that rely on offsets and will prompt a re-evaluation of the world's leading carbon standard, Verra, which operates numerous environmental standards for climate action and sustainable development. Verra disputes the findings, but the evidence suggests a need for urgent changes in financing rainforest conservation, with experts calling for carbon markets to work if they are to be scaled up. Companies like Shell, Gucci, and Salesforce that have bought Verra-certified credits are responding, with some like EasyJet opting to focus on developing zero-carbon emission technology instead.

Below you can find key takeaways from the article:

Research into Verra, the world's leading carbon standard, has found that more than 90% of rainforest offset credits are likely to be "phantom credits" and do not represent genuine carbon reductions.
A nine-month investigation has been undertaken by the Guardian, Die Zeit and SourceMaterial into Verra's rainforest schemes. The findings are likely to pose serious questions for companies that depend on offsets.
Verra operates a number of leading environmental standards for climate action and sustainable development, including its verified carbon standard (VCS), which approves three-quarters of all voluntary offsets.

The investigation found that:

Verra's rainforest offset projects showed no evidence of deforestation reductions, and 94% of the credits had no benefit to the climate. Human rights issues are a serious concern in at least one of the offsetting projects.

The analysis: “It’s disappointing and scary”

A team of journalists analysed three scientific studies that used satellite images to check the results of a number of forest offsetting projects. The saved carbon emissions were converted into credits that companies can buy and use to offset their own carbon emissions.
Two different groups of scientists looked at 87 Verra-approved active projects. A number were left out by the researchers.
The two studies found that only eight out of 29 Verra-approved projects showed evidence of meaningful deforestation reductions. The researchers found that 94% of the credits the projects produced should not have been approved.
The journalists again analysed the results and found that the baseline scenarios of forest loss appeared to be overstated by about 400%.
Verra strongly disputed the studies' conclusions and said the methods the scientists used cannot capture the true impact on the ground. It said it already uses some of the methods the researchers used, but not for this project type.
The Guardian reported that 90% of Verra-certified REDD+ credits are worthless. Verra has already addressed the main criticisms of its REDD+ methodologies by implementing a jurisdictional allocation approach and re-assessing project baselines every six years.
Verra has certified over 1,500 carbon projects that have delivered billions of dollars for rural areas in the global south to fight climate change and biodiversity loss.
Verra was concerned about the use of synthetic controls, but the authors argue that the comparison areas used in both cases are real areas, with deforestation levels based on rates that are local to the projects.
The evidence from the analysis suggests we cannot trust the predictions of deforestation made by these projects, said Thales West, a lead author on the studies.
Erin Sills, a professor at North Carolina State University, said the findings were "disappointing and scary", and that urgent changes were needed to finance rainforest conservation.
David Coomes, a professor of forest ecology at the University of Cambridge, said there were strong discrepancies between the amount of deforestation his team estimated the projects were avoiding and what the carbon standard was approving.
Julia Jones said the world was at a crossroads when it came to protecting tropical forests and that the carbon markets must be made to work if they are to be scaled up.
The main challenge with realising climate change mitigation benefits from Redd+ is reliably forecasting the future. This report shows that future forecasts have been overly pessimistic, and hence have vastly overstated their Redd+ climate benefits.
Shell, Gucci, Pearl Jam, BHP and Salesforce said they bought credits that were certified by Verra, while Lavazza said it plans to look more closely into the project.
The fast food chain Leon and EasyJet have stopped buying carbon offsets, and instead focus on developing new zero-carbon emission aircraft technology.
Barbara Haya, director of the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project, has been researching carbon credits for 20 years and has found that most credits do not represent emissions reductions at all. She is starting to give up on the offset market.

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