Biggest Carbon Credit Certifier To Replace Its Rainforest Offsets Scheme (theguardian.com) 13
The world's leading carbon credit certifier -- used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations for climate claims -- has said it will phase out and replace its rainforest offsets programme by mid-2025 after a Guardian investigation found it was flawed. From a report: Verra, the main guarantee of credibility for the rapidly growing $2bn voluntary offsets market, has committed to scrapping its rainforest protection programme by July 2025 and introducing new rules, which it is developing. A senior Verra figure said this week it was time to move on from the current system.
In January, a nine-month investigation by the Guardian, the German weekly Die Zeit and SourceMaterial found widespread problems with the system. Analysis of a significant proportion of Verra projects indicated more than 90% of its rainforest offset credits do not represent genuine carbon reductions. Human rights issues are a serious concern in at least one of the offsetting projects co-run by the NGO Conservation International and the Peruvian governments, with evidence people had been forced from their homes. From the band Pearl Jam to easyJet, Lavazza to the housebuilder Berkeley Group, Verra's rainforest carbon offsets have been used by internationally renowned companies. Some have labelled their products "carbon neutral," or told their consumers they can fly, buy new clothes or eat certain foods without making the climate crisis worse. In Singapore and Colombia, companies can buy the offsets instead of paying carbon taxes.
In January, a nine-month investigation by the Guardian, the German weekly Die Zeit and SourceMaterial found widespread problems with the system. Analysis of a significant proportion of Verra projects indicated more than 90% of its rainforest offset credits do not represent genuine carbon reductions. Human rights issues are a serious concern in at least one of the offsetting projects co-run by the NGO Conservation International and the Peruvian governments, with evidence people had been forced from their homes. From the band Pearl Jam to easyJet, Lavazza to the housebuilder Berkeley Group, Verra's rainforest carbon offsets have been used by internationally renowned companies. Some have labelled their products "carbon neutral," or told their consumers they can fly, buy new clothes or eat certain foods without making the climate crisis worse. In Singapore and Colombia, companies can buy the offsets instead of paying carbon taxes.
No credits, taxes, or even fines will work (Score:4, Insightful)
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And their executives forced to plant trees for the rest of their lives.
Better yet, plant the executives
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Companies that destroy the planet must be destroyed first. And their executives forced to plant trees for the rest of their lives.
Not everything we do in life can be made carbon neutral. Companies will always exist that destroy the world and they do so because your lifestyle demands it. A mechanism to bill them or to get them to make repatriations must exist.
More to the point here isn't the fact that shitshows like Shell are buying carbon credits, it's that those people selling them were committing fraud. If I pay you to do something and you tell me you did it without doing it, you normally risk severe legal trouble. If the thing you
Money for nothing (Score:3)
That ain't workin', that's the way you do it
Scam from the outset (Score:5, Insightful)
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What now, are they trying to save face or something?
They're probably busy workshopping carbon offset NFTs.
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It's not that all carbon offsetting is a scam, it's more like the scam artists got halfway around the world before the honest ones got their shoes on in the morning. Doesn't help that known environmental groups are selling carbon offsets for long-owned&preserved wetlands, as if they were on the verge of paving it over without the donation. Makes the message seem more like part of the sales pitch*.
I think 'carbon offset' should be defined (required) as actual removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphe
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Everyone knew "carbon offsetting" would be a scam.
The issue is carbon offsetting isn't a scam in itself. It's just used by scammy companies as a scam. It's kind of like how finance as a concept isn't a scam but crypto currencies continue to exist.
Not everything in the world can be carbon neutral, so some method of offsetting should exist. What we should be doing is throwing every at Verra in jail for 1 year for every tree which wasn't planted, or every "protected" rainforest which wasn't at risk in the first place. Maybe other companies will think twice be
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Carbon offsetting isn't a scam in itself, but in real life it is counter-productive to solve the climate and CO2 emissions crisis. Mainly because it leads people and companies to think that if they "offset" their carbon footprint, then the problem is no longer their responsibility. Whereas it should actually lead them to change the way they consume goods (buying habits, eating habits, traveling habits...).
Carbon offsetting is an anesthetic that in the end delays the real necessary changes.
IMHO
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Very mature response.
What I meant is that the people who setup the carbon credit system did it as if they were in an imaginary perfect world, where people wouldn't actually try to play the system. In the actual world, the carbon credit system is counter-productive.