![]() ![]() ![]() “Things need to continue improving quickly in order to for the VCM to scale up,” he adds, explaining that scrutiny is “needed” so that improvements can be made to the methodologies used to calculate a carbon credit’s worth. “If anything, it’s just pausing immediate decisions and it’s making buyers a bit more careful about what they buy, making sure that they do their own their own diligence. “What we’re seeing now is much more attention from the media on the VCM, and this is all part of the VCM’s growing pains,” he says. When asked about the possible effects of bad press on the VCM as a whole, Leslie said that he sees the scrutiny as a “positive”. We know that we will not be able to meet even 2☌ if we do not end tropical deforestation,” but reiterated that carbon credits “should be complimentary, not a substitute” for cutting emissions. In January, on the same day as the publication of the Verra investigation, Nat Keohane, president of the Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions in the US, told The Guardian: “We need to use every channel we can for funding… We can’t leave anything on the table. “Making carbon market buyers a bit more careful” The UK’s independent climate advisory body the Climate Change Committee encourages the use of “high-integrity” nature-based and biological credits by businesses as an additional means of climate action, although it states that even top-quality credits can play but a “small role” in the transition to net zero. “Chevron supports offsets as part of that effort and views them as an important market-based approach to efficient carbon reductions.” Turenne added that “the majority” of the credits referred to in the study are “compliance-grade” and accepted by the governments in the regions where the company operates.ĭespite recent scandal, properly selected and well-calculated carbon credits are considered to be a useful tool in funding climate change mitigation projects. “The cited report is biased against our industry and paints an incomplete picture of Chevron’s efforts to advance a lower carbon future,” external affairs adviser Bill Turenne said in an email to Offshore Technology. The study found that 42% of the company’s offset schemes are linked to claims of local community abuse or environmental degradation, and could be further fuelling climate breakdown.Īt the time, a spokesperson for Chevron challenged the report’s conclusions. Both its natural and engineered carbon removal projects are either “junk”, contributing nothing to emissions reductions, or severely underperforming, sometimes missing targets by 50%. It found that 93% of Chevron’s carbon credits, purchased through the VCM to offset some of its own substantial emissions, “seem to be worthless” or actively harm communities. The report, titled “Destruction is at the heart of everything we do”, came from NGO watchdog Corporate Accountability. Then in mid-May, a study looking at oil giant Chevron’s use of carbon offsets made headlines. The company also said that since 2009, its work has enabled billions of dollars to be put into forest preservation and restoration. ![]() Vera criticised the investigation’s methodology and said the conclusions drawn were “incorrect”. Local people also described forced evictions from their homes. On a visit to a major project in Peru, journalists at The Guardian were shown videos that residents said depicted their homes being destroyed with chainsaws and ropes by guards and police working alongside carbon credit companies. In at least one of Verra’s carbon offsetting projects, human rights violations were a serious concern. Specifically, the investigation found that only a handful of Verra’s rainforest projects showed evidence of tangible deforestation reductions, with further analysis suggesting that 94% of the credits sold to companies had no benefit regarding climate change. Now, it seems that these labels were never truly earned. Multinationals including Disney, Shell, BP, easyJet, Leon, and Gucci used Verra’s credits to earn low-carbon branding for their goods. The first came in mid-January when a joint investigation by the UK’s The Guardian, Germany’s Die Zeit and online climate reporters SourceMaterial revealed that more than 90% of rainforest offsets offered by Verra, the world’s leading carbon credits certifier, were likely to be “phantom credits” and did not represent genuine emissions reductions. So which is it, and how might changing regulations affect the VCM landscape? Lax regulation breeds “worthless” offsetsĪlready this year, several scandals relating to corporate misuse of carbon credits have made headlines. While some organisations hail carbon credits as an authentic method of decarbonisation, a necessary addition to corporations’ journeys to net zero, other groups argue that they are ultimately a scam, giving companies an easy but ineffective alternative to reducing their own emissions. ![]()
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