Carbon credits fraud: ‘major concerns’ as most forest carbon offset projects overstate climate impacts 

River Amazon in the Peruvian rainforest

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Exaggeration is rife in climate matters. We read about ‘only an estimated 13.2% of tradable credits being backed by evidence of avoided deforestation. This discrepancy raises major concerns about the reliability of current offset practices.’ Other types of dodgy information are mentioned. Of course there’s never anything to show that these schemes make any actual difference to the global climate – but vast sums of money are involved. The study abstract says: ‘Less than 20% of projects met their emissions targets. Project success and overestimation both varied considerably between countries.’
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Most Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) forest carbon offset projects significantly overstate their climate benefits, according to a new study published in Science, says Phys.org.

The findings come from an international team of researchers, primarily based at the Guangdong Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Economy (SZ), China, with contributions from Prof. Dr. Jonathan Chase of the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU).

The study analyzed 52 REDD+ initiatives, a total of 66 project units (some initiatives included multiple units), certified under Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard.

It follows a 2023 study also published in Science, together with major media investigations, that raised questions about the credibility of carbon credits issued under the same standard.

While not directly linked, the new research corroborates those concerns, confirming that only a minority of projects achieved meaningful reductions in deforestation, and just 19% met their reported emissions targets.
. . .
Partial gains signal promise
About one-third (32%) of the project units (21/66) showed significantly less deforestation than expected, with some Brazilian projects achieving dramatic reductions.

However, nearly one-fifth (17%) of the units (11/66) experienced more deforestation than their matched controls, and about 35% of initiatives (18/52) reported deforestation baselines that were far higher than what the data supported.

In Colombia, for example, most projects claimed deforestation risks more than ten times greater than the study’s estimates, suggesting substantial over-crediting.

To quantify the scale of the issue, the team examined 48 of the 52 projects with publicly available carbon credit data. By the end of 2022, up to 228 million credits had been issued, with 127 million used by companies or individuals to offset their greenhouse gas emissions, yet only about 35 million were likely to represent real emissions reductions.

That amounts to only an estimated 13.2% of tradable credits being backed by evidence of avoided deforestation. This discrepancy raises major concerns about the reliability of current offset practices, according to the authors.

“The market needs credits that mean what they claim. We estimate that only about one in eight tradable credits represents real emissions reductions today. Stronger baselines, independent evaluation, and diversified portfolios can raise that number and restore confidence,” Chase adds.

Full article here.
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Image: Amazon rainforest