Major registries in the carbon offset market are allowing dubious credits, report says

[jgo]

Source: CNBC

Major registries in the carbon offset market are systematically over-crediting projects and delivering dubious carbon offsets, a practice that allows some companies to make unjustified claims of climate progress, according to a new report published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change.

A group of researchers led by Barbara Haya, director of the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project, studied nearly 300 carbon offset projects across the world that comprise 11% of all carbon offset credits to date.

Carbon offset projects allow businesses and governments to balance out their carbon emissions by supporting green initiatives that reduce or sequester an equal amount of carbon pollution. Standards are upheld by groups that have their own registries and are largely unregulated.

The report comes amid repeated concerns over whether carbon offsets are an accurate and effective way to mitigate climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/21/registries-in-carbon-offset-market-allowing-dubious-credits-report.html

[thesquanderer]

1. John Oliver did a great piece on this issue a while back. n/t

[MichMan]

2. They are a scam letting people act all sanctimonious about being green

[NullTuples]

3. I am shocked - shocked, I tell you - that the "credits" scam is not actually solving the problem.

[NickB79]

4. It's all a scam

Plant a million trees at the wrong time of year, in the wrong soil, in a drought with no water. Trees all die, but you get a credit.

Buy a bunch of rainforest, clear it, plant oil palms, and get a credit.

Buy a forest in California, watch it all burn down, but still collect a credit.