ANP Tropical rainforest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 20:00
Airlines, fossil industry, food producers: many companies use CO2 compensation to label their products CO2 neutral or climate-friendly. Not by reducing their own emissions, but by so-called ‘carbon credits‘ to pay for projects that, for example, plant forests, finance renewable energy sources or prevent tropical rainforests from being cut down.
In this last form of compensation, the conservation of woods and forests, the climate gain is often overestimated, according to a new study study.
CO2 compensation through carbon credits has been under fire for a long time. Several companies have been through the courts or the Advertising Code Commission whistled back, because they found the compensation claims misleading. Climate clubs call it a form of greenwashing, which allows companies to do nothing about reducing their own emissions. Domestic and foreign media did research to projects where it appears that the promised compensation does not materialize much.
Billion dollar trade
Currently, the market for voluntary purchases is worth about $2 billion annually carbon credits. The market is expected to grow significantly, according to a study by the Boston Consulting Group to about 10 to 40 billion in 2030.
There is also compulsory trading in CO2 emission rights, such as in the European ETS. Nowadays, this already involves much larger amounts; worldwide, about 63 billion in emission rights were traded last year.
The new study focuses on forest conservation projects. Forests are cut down to sell the wood or to cultivate the land. This felling releases the CO2 that was stored in the forests. The idea is to prevent CO2 emissions by preserving those forests.
Forest conservation
The CO2 emission reductions promised by the projects are in most cases not achieved, the researchers conclude. Where forests were effectively protected, the emission reduction was significantly smaller than promised. “Out of 89 million carbon credits that have been or can still be spent on these projects, only 6 percent have been shown to have actually reduced CO2 emissions,” says researcher Thales West of the VU University in Amsterdam.
West and a group of other climate scientists investigated 26 different forest conservation projects, including in Peru, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cambodia. These projects are allowed to issue one credit for every ton of CO2 that has not gone into the air. All projects spend far too many credits, the researchers conclude. “There is no evidence that these projects actually prevent deforestation,” says West.
Satellite images compared
Comparable pieces of land were selected for all project areas as a control group: the same size, and according to the researchers also with the same ‘risk of deforestation’. Satellite images were compared. Result: not much less deforestation took place in the ‘placebo forests’. The difference was negligible in the African and Colombian projects in particular. In Peru alone, a decrease of 0.24 percent compared to the control area was measured in a project in the first years. This saved 686 hectares of forest, still much less than promised.
It is complicated to predict what would happen if the forest was not protected, says researcher West. “Historical data on deforestation is often looked at, but it cannot be linked one-to-one to the future.” According to the researcher, there is a perverse incentive to exaggerate the threat. “The larger the area that is at risk of being deforested, the more credits you can ask for such an area and the more money you will receive for it.”
Method modified
Of carbon credits for these projects are certified by Verra, one of the largest providers of CO2 compensation. In a response to previous claims that their projects do not yield much climate benefit, Verra expressed a lot of criticism of the research methods that West also uses. According to the organization, the control areas are not comparable to the forests protected by the projects, because they were sometimes far away from the projects and there were different types of trees.
Researcher West maintains that the areas can be compared. He thinks a lot needs to happen before this one credits can be used properly. “It is not responsible at the moment. Perhaps there will be reliable ones in the long run credits will be, which will really reduce CO2 in the air, but at the moment the calculations that are being made are still too problematic.”
After the wave of criticism, Verra also has her methodology amended. The organization states, among other things, that the data it uses for the expected deforestation is now ‘more up-to-date and more accurate’.
NOSop3 previously made this video about greenwashing:
Sustainable or just expensive? This is green washing
2023-08-24 18:00:01
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