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topic: Carbon Credits
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Research shows the Caatinga is Brazil’s most efficient carbon capture biome
- Studies found that for every 100 metric tons of CO2 absorbed by dried-out forests in the semiarid area of Brazil’s northeasern region, 45-60 metric tons do not return to the atmosphere; in the Amazon Rainforest, the balance between carbon absorption and release ranges from 2-11%, compared with 23% in the Cerrado biome.
- According to researchers, the Caatinga’s vegetation stores 8,677 metric tons of carbon per square mile [3,350 per square kilometer], which can be released in the event of deforestation — a problem that increased by 2,500% from 2019 to2022, making the Caatinga Brazil’s third-most deforested biome.
- The solutions suggested to preserve the Caatinga include social carbon credit programs, new conservation units, and degraded areas recovered through agroecology.
Multilateral development banks must prioritize clean & community-led energy projects (commentary)
- Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), governments, and corporations across 160 countries consider or approve more than one investment per day in the energy sector.
- Despite commitments to tackle the climate crisis, many of these investments support the fossil fuel industry, while others invest in false clean energy solutions like hydropower which often cause harm to local communities.
- “To achieve a just energy transition, MDBs and governments must prioritize sustainable renewable energy models that empower communities and ensure inclusive energy access,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Land tenure lesson from Laos for forest carbon projects (commentary)
- Laos has lost approximately 4.37 million hectares of tree cover since 2001, and some suggest forest carbon projects could be a solution.
- However, these haven’t had a good track record in the nation, in part due to its land tenure rules — land is owned by the state but largely used by local communities through customary tenure arrangements — leading to misunderstandings between companies, communities, and government agencies.
- “Forest carbon projects should continuously engage in capacity-building for local communities and authorities, thus creating an enabling environment for just benefit-sharing, securing land tenure, and the sustainability of these projects to reduce emissions over the long term,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Are biodiversity credits just another business-as-usual finance scheme?
- There’s a new emerging innovative finance scheme to support biodiversity conservation: voluntary biodiversity credits. These are meant to be purely voluntary, “positive investment” in nature by the private sector and, in theory, should not be used to offset damage elsewhere.
- But several Indigenous and environmental groups and researchers worry that, like the voluntary carbon credit market, a voluntary biodiversity market could end up being used for offsets, allowing companies and governments to continue business as usual.
- Critics also say there is lack of a clear demand for such credits from the private sector, and a voluntary biodiversity credit market won’t be a sustainable solution at a global scale.
- Indigenous and local communities have the potential to financially benefit from these biodiversity credit projects, which are likely to target their lands. But experts point out the need to first fix several fundamental problems that have already emerged in the carbon credit market, from the lack of land rights among Indigenous communities to unscrupulous middlemen, unjust contracts and dilution of funds.
UN probes controversial forest carbon agreement in Malaysian Borneo
- The government of Sabah state in Malaysian Borneo will continue to move forward with an opaque nature conservation agreement despite concerns raised by the United Nations.
- In a letter, the U.N. calls in question the transparency of the agreement and the state’s approach to the human rights law principle of free, prior and informed consent.
- The agreement was signed by state officials and a representative of a Singaporean company in 2021. Shortly after news of the deal became public, some Indigenous groups in the state said they hadn’t been consulted or informed about the deal covering 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of the state’s forests.
- The U.N. letter was written by a group of “special procedures experts” with mandates established by the U.N. Human Rights Council, including the special rapporteurs on the rights of Indigenous peoples, on human rights and the environment, and on the right to development.
Chocó land deal shows flaws in Ecuador’s forestry incentive program
- A conflict over thousands of hectares of the Andean Chocó bioregion of northwestern Ecuador — now enmeshed in a decade-long legal battle — shows that the country’s Socio Bosque program is susceptible to potential corruption and political dealmaking, activists in the area claim.
- Over 9,000 hectares (22,239 acres) were stolen from local communities through an illegal land sale that was then used to benefit from the Socio Bosque program, critics say.
- Complaints filed to the Ministry of Environment have led to multiple inspections of the land, and the person who collected Socio Bosque payments was ordered to return $152,364.
New report details rights abuses in Cambodia’s Southern Cardamom REDD+ project
- Human Rights Watch has detailed forced evictions, property destruction and violence against Indigenous communities living within a REDD+ carbon offset project area in southwest Cambodia.
- Trade of carbon credits from the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project were suspended last year amid similar allegations, and the project’s carbon certifier recently announced it’s expanding its ongoing investigation.
- Residents told Mongabay that Wildlife Alliance, the NGO that manages the project, has effectively outlawed their traditional methods of farming and livelihood, including restricting their access to sustainable forest products.
- Wildlife Alliance has denied the allegations, suggesting HRW has an agenda against carbon offsetting projects, but says it’s making improvements in response to the allegations.
Markets and forests: 7 takeaways from our series on the forest carbon trade
This is the wrap-up article for our five-part series on forest carbon credits and the voluntary market. Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five. Mongabay recently published a five-part series on the carbon trade and its use as a tool to address climate change. The exchange of carbon credits, typically […]
The future of forest carbon credits and voluntary markets
- Observers predicted that 2023 would be a “make-or-break” year for voluntary carbon markets and “an inflection point” for their role in addressing climate change and global deforestation.
- Amid criticisms around carbon accounting, carbon neutrality claims, and issues with forest communities, governance bodies say they’ve worked to increase consistency and “integrity” for the voluntary carbon market and specifically the forest conservation strategy known as REDD+.
- Concerns remain from a variety of observers, including those who say the focus of credit-buying companies should be on eliminating their carbon emissions from across their entire suite of operations.
- But proponents of markets say that while decarbonizing is absolutely necessary to minimize the rise in global temperatures, the carbon trade allows for the mitigation of pesky residual emissions that it’s either impossible or too expensive to get rid of at this point.
Leveraging the hypothetical: The uncertain world of carbon credit calculations
- Criticisms of the voluntary carbon trade and forest conservation strategies like REDD+ have centered largely on the carbon accounting methods used to calculate credits.
- Each credit traded on voluntary markets is supposed to represent the reduction, avoidance or removal of 1 metric ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
- But recent science has raised questions about how REDD+ and other types of project figure out the number of tons of emissions saved.
- The process relies on establishing a baseline rate of deforestation against which a project’s emissions-reducing or -removing success is measured. But critics say the process can be faulty and that the conflicts of interest of the parties involved in setting the baseline have not been addressed until recently.
‘Cowboys’ and intermediaries thrive in Wild West of the carbon market
- A host of different players have crowded into the voluntary carbon trade as its value has grown.
- Motivated by the potential for profit, a concern for climate change or some combination of the two, these companies and organizations link the credits generated by projects, such as those that fit in the forest conservation scheme known as REDD+, with buyers, often companies and individuals in the Global North looking to compensate for their climate impacts.
- Some groups say they help shoulder the burden of tasks like marketing so that the communities and project staff on the ground can focus on the “change-making work.”
- But others, sometimes called “carbon cowboys,” seem interested in the money to be made from trading carbon. Some have faced allegations that they don’t bring the necessary expertise to their work, or that they don’t adequately inform local communities about the intended projects and the potential pitfalls.
How will we know when local communities benefit from carbon offset schemes? (commentary)
- Carbon credit schemes face a crisis of legitimacy and often struggle to demonstrate the support of communities who must forgo land uses not compatible with the production and retention of carbon.
- At the very least, such projects should not negatively impact affected communities, but community support is also not a simple matter of just obtaining free prior and informed consent (FPIC), but rather it is a matter of building relationships and assessing impacts on communities over the life of such projects, which can span generations.
- “We have proposed a framework for measuring, assessing, and improving community benefits and impacts from carbon projects [which] includes a subjective data collection survey instrument that measures holistic well-being as a critical measure of community well-being in climate projects,” the authors of a new op-ed write.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Do carbon credits really help communities that keep forests standing?
- Communities play a critical role in REDD+, a forest conservation strategy that aims to reduce emissions that can be sold as credits to raise money for forest protection.
- REDD+ projects often include components for the benefit of the communities, such as a focus on alternative livelihoods and provision of health care and education.
- But reports that REDD+ communities have faced abuses and rights violations have emerged recently in connection with high-profile REDD+ projects.
- Several Indigenous-led organizations have voiced their support for REDD+ because, they say, it provides an avenue to fund their climate-related conservation work, while other groups say it’s not the answer.
False claims of U.N. backing see Indigenous groups cede forest rights for sketchy finance
- Several companies registered in Latin American countries claiming to have U.N. endorsement have persuaded Indigenous communities to hand over the economic rights to their forests for decades to come, a Mongabay investigation has found. The companies share commercial interests across various jurisdictions, and have not been able to demonstrate experience in sustainable finance projects.
- Indigenous communities in Peru, Bolivia and Panama were promised jobs and local development projects in exchange for putting on the market more than 9.5 million hectares (23.5 million acres) of forests. According to community sources, the claims of U.N. backing were the main selling point for agreeing to put their forests on the market. All three U.N. entities cited by the companies have rejected any involvement.
- Mongabay has found that the methodology employed for valuing natural capital has not been used before; there are no public details regarding its scientific and technical basis; and the company that created the methodology refused to share information about it.
- Experts have raised concerns that a lack of regulation in the fast-growing sustainable finance industry is allowing abuses against communities that act as guardians for critical ecosystems.
Forest carbon credits and the voluntary market: A solution or a distraction?
- Voluntary carbon markets and forest carbon credits have faced widespread criticism that reached a zenith in 2023.
- Media reports detailed concerns about their dubious climate benefits, respect for communities and land rights, and their use by Global North companies to avoid the difficult task of decarbonizing their operations.
- Supporters of forest conservation strategies like REDD+ say that they can and should play a role, as healthy forests can absorb a significant amount of atmospheric carbon. They also say REDD+ brings much-needed funding to protect and restore forests, not only for their carbon, but because of the biodiversity and communities they support.
- As 2023 draws to a close, and with it the U.N. climate conference in Dubai (COP28), proponents of the voluntary carbon trade are working to increase the “integrity” of markets in ways they hope make them a viable tool to deal with climate change.
Indigenous-led coalition calls for moratorium on terrestrial carbon trade
- The Pathways Alliance for Change and Transformation (PACT), a coalition of Indigenous, community and nonprofit organizations, published a paper in September 2023 calling for a moratorium on the forest carbon trade out of concern for the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities.
- PACT says a pause in selling carbon credits is needed until protections for the land rights of these communities are laid out “explicitly, proactively, and comprehensively.”
- In December at the U.N. climate conference in Dubai, carbon markets experienced a setback after negotiators failed to agree on texts to articles in the 2015 Paris climate agreement meant to guide the carbon trade.
Company sells Indigenous land in Amazonas as NFTs without community’s knowledge
- Areas of the Apurinã territory in the Lower Seruini area, in southern Amazonas state, were sold by Nemus under an NFT project that promises to preserve the forest and generate carbon credits.
- Brazil’s Federal Prosecution Service recommended suspending the project in December 2022, but a story by InfoAmazonia showed that negotiations continue on the internet; plots in an Indigenous land with its demarcation process underway are traded as NFTs for $17-603.
- Indigenous communities were not properly consulted about the company’s plans and are now calling for government action.
- Nemus told prosecutors that the area was not on “a properly demarcated Indigenous land” and therefore the company understood that “no article of ILO 169 convention on consultation applies.”
Colombian companies defy laws, push Amazon carbon projects in Indigenous lands
- The promise of an Indigenous university persuaded leaders from the Upper Solimões Indigenous lands, in the Brazilian Amazonas state, to sign carbon contracts with Colombian companies.
- FUNAI, the Indigenous affairs agency, denied authorization for projects in Indigenous lands and advised against signing contracts; the process did not include prior consultation as provided for in ILO Convention 169, of which Brazil is a signatory.
- Indigenous people have not been aware of FUNAI’s guidelines and say they believe there will be classes at the university next year.
- FUNAI and Brazil’s Ministry of Education are not aware of a university project funded with money from carbon credits and say that contracts could be considered null and void.
New dams in Cambodia pit ‘green’ hydropower against REDD+ project
- The recent approval of two hydropower dams in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains could undermine a REDD+ carbon project in the area.
- The Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project relies on keeping the forests in this region standing — a goal researchers say is “completely incompatible” with the forest clearing and flooding necessitated by the new dams.
- The lack of transparency inherent in both the carbon market and the Cambodian government means that the fate of the Cardamoms remains unclear for now.
Little achieved for Indigenous groups at U.N. climate summit, delegates say
- At this year’s U.N. climate conference, COP28, Indigenous delegates numbered more than 300, but were left generally disappointed with the outcomes of the event.
- The final agreement had little inclusion of Indigenous rights and excluded an Indigenous representative from sitting on the board of the newly launched loss and damage fund.
- Indigenous groups say two big climate mitigation strategies, the clean energy transition and carbon markets, should include robust protection of Indigenous rights and consent.
- Despite setbacks, Indigenous leaders say they’re working on increasing their presence and influence at the next climate conferences, including upping their numbers to 3,000 delegates, creating a large international Indigenous Commission, and taking part in the summit’s decision-making.
Indigenous land rights are key to conservation in Cambodia (commentary)
- Indigenous peoples are effective custodians of biodiversity, lands, and seas, while sustaining distinct cultural, social and economic values of their communities.
- Upholding the legal land rights of these communities is therefore increasingly at the center of international climate and biodiversity commitments and agreements.
- “Strengthening Indigenous custodianship by expanding, reinforcing, and fully implementing these legal recognitions is essential for the protection of Cambodia’s forests, and would create further confidence among donors and carbon markets that customary rights are being upheld, enabling greater access to finance,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
At COP28 & beyond, fair carbon markets must be part of the climate finance solution (commentary)
- As COP28 gets underway, carbon markets and credits are under fire due to claims about corporate greenwashing and convoluted carbon accounting metrics.
- At the same time, political will and climate finance remain in short supply, hindering progress toward reaching global climate goals.
- A new op-ed argues that fair carbon pricing and equitable, transparent carbon markets represent part but not all of the climate finance solution: governments, NGOs, local communities and the corporate sector must work together in good faith toward reaching emission reduction targets.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Carbon credit certifier Verra updates accounting method amid growing criticism
- The world’s largest carbon credit certifier, Verra, has overhauled its methods for calculating the climate impacts of REDD projects that aim to reduce deforestation.
- REDD stands for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
- The emissions reductions from these projects can be sold on the voluntary carbon market to individuals and companies, which proponents say provides a vital stream of funding for forest conservation.
- The update changes the process for calculating deforestation baselines, which help determine how effective a project has been at reducing forest loss and keeping the carbon those trees contain out of the atmosphere.
How Indigenous peoples and local communities can make the voluntary carbon market work for them (commentary)
- The voluntary carbon market has the potential to address $4.1 trillion in nature financing gap by 2050 and support Indigenous peoples and local communities — when done right, argue a cohort of Indigenous leaders in a new commentary.
- The voluntary carbon market can work for and support Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPs and LCs), and them for it, but these communities have not been adequately engaged or consulted to participate in this carbon market.
- The Indigenous leaders announce the new IPs and LCs Voluntary Carbon Market Engagement Forum that is taking shape and will try to address these IPs and LCs’ priorities. The Forum is now coordinating open calls for Governing Board members and Forum partners.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
U.N. carbon trading scheme holds promise and peril for tropical forests
- Suriname is one of the first countries to announce it aims to use emissions reduction results through a forest conservation scheme known as REDD+ to trade almost 5 million carbon credits underArticle 6 of the Paris Agreement.
- Article 6 of the agreement establishes a framework for emissions trading through market and non-market mechanisms, which are poised to play a central role in delivering the pledged emissions cuts of many countries.
- Around 85% of countries that signed the 2015 Paris Agreement have indicated their intent to use international carbon markets to achieve their updated or new emissions reduction targets.
- While some experts see Article 6 as a valid way to channel finance into REDD+, others are wary that it could compromise the integrity of the system.
Jurisdictional REDD+ ready to fund forest-positive, socially-inclusive development in the Amazon and beyond (commentary)
- Jurisdictional REDD+ (JREDD) is designed to fund regional transitions to forest-positive, socially-inclusive rural development. It is fundamentally different than private forest carbon projects, which have come under scrutiny for overstating their climate benefits.
- JREDD rewards forest carbon emissions reductions already achieved across entire jurisdictions–states and nations–and provides a platform for the full participation of Indigenous peoples, local communities and farmers; it features a leadership role for governments that are becoming more transparent and inclusive in the process.
- The steep decline in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon means that several states are poised to issue a large volume of high-integrity, verified JREDD credits from 2024 onward. If the demand for these credits is sufficient, sales revenues could help states tame extensive forest frontiers with transparency and accountability, inspiring other regions to do the same.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Control of Africa’s forests must not be sold to carbon offset companies (commentary)
- A forest carbon deal between Blue Carbon and the nation of Liberia would give the company exclusive rights to control 10% of the nation’s land mass for 30 years.
- Blue Carbon has also signed MOUs for similar deals with Tanzania and Zambia (and others) and combined with the Liberia deal, the land controlled by the company in these three African nations represents an area the size of the whole of the United Kingdom.
- “Carbon colonialism is a false solution to the climate crisis,” a new op-ed states. “The only real answer is to end our fossil fuel addiction by dramatically reducing our emissions, while financially supporting countries and local communities to protect their forests, rather than wrest control of them.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Carbon counting without the guesswork: Q&A with FCL proponent Jerry Toth
- REDD+ projects aim to incentivize efforts that maintain standing forests, rather than cutting them down, by providing payments based on the carbon emissions kept out of the atmosphere.
- But REDD+, which is short for “reducing deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries,” has been widely criticized lately, in part because skeptics say that the accounting methods are open to manipulation by developers aiming to sell more credits — credits that many not represent a verifiable climate benefit.
- One alternative is the forest carbon ledger (FCL). FCL seeks to value the total amount of carbon in a forest and would provide payments based on how well that storage is maintained over time.
- Mongabay spoke with Jerry Toth, co-founder of a conservation group working to protect and restore the last remaining remnants of the Pacific Forest of Ecuador called the Third Millennium Alliance (TMA). Toth said FCL may provide a more robust alternative to REDD+ carbon accounting.
Shell affiliate accused of violating Indigenous rights in carbon credit contracts
- A report reveals how Carbonext allegedly failed to adhere to international conventions and ignored Funai, Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency, in collecting signatures on contracts for generating carbon credits inside Indigenous territories in the Amazon.
- The company attempted to double its forest area with six projects on Indigenous lands to offset the emissions of large global polluters.
- At the Alto Rio Guamá Indigenous Territory in the state of Pará, Indigenous people allege that the carbon credit-generating company pressed communities to sign blank sheets of paper; Funai’s legal office received an offer of 50 million reais ($10.1 million) in advance for the signatures of Kayapó communities.
- Negotiations were led by a former Lava-Jato prosecutor who had also worked for Indigenous causes; after Indigenous rights violations were reported, Carbonext requested that the contracts be annulled; the Federal Prosecutor’s Office says the company may be investigated for possible damage and violations to the Indigenous communities involved.
Can carbon markets solve Africa’s climate finance woes?
- The African Carbon Markets Initiative, a consortium of Global North donors, corporate representatives, conservation groups and energy lobbyists, is pushing to expand carbon markets on the continent.
- The effort has gained the vocal support of Kenyan President William Ruto, along with a number of other African heads of state, who see carbon markets as a way to generate badly needed climate finance.
- But African environmental groups have sharply criticized carbon markets, saying they represent a “false solution” to the climate crisis and will mostly enrich bankers and traders based outside the continent.
- The drive to scale up carbon markets in Africa and elsewhere is set to be a major agenda item at this month’s COP28 climate summit in Dubai.
Critical questions remain as carbon credit deal in Sabah presses forward
- Details around a secretive “nature conservation agreement” signed in 2021 between a Singaporean company and the government of Sabah, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo, remain elusive.
- Several internationally known companies that work in climate mitigation have said they’re not affiliated with the agreement, despite implications by Jeffrey Kitingan, a deputy chief minister and the deal’s primary backer, that they are involved.
- Kitingan also revealed that Hoch Standard, the Singaporean company, is controlled by a single director through another company registered in the British Virgin Islands.
- Kitingan said the project is moving forward, leading to renewed calls from civil society, Indigenous and research organizations for the release of more details about the agreement.
For 1st time, Indonesia government recognizes ancestral forests in Aceh — but only some
- The Indonesian government has recognized 22,549 hectares (55,700 acres) of ancestral forests in Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra — the first time for the region.
- In total, Indigenous communities in Aceh seek recognition of 144,497 hectares (357,060 acres) of customary forests, and thus activists are calling for the government to recognize the rest of the forests.
- The communities welcome the recognition, saying it will give them legal protection to manage their forests in a sustainable manner.
New Paraguay law aims to improve carbon credit market
- A new law in Paraguay creates a more organized, transparent carbon credit system but might also complicate the way credits are bought and sold.
- The law creates a registry for carbon credit projects and ensures land isn’t being assigned more than once.
- The Gran Chaco, South America’s second-largest forest, has been of particular interest to the carbon credit market, as there are concerns about deforestation in the area.
As companies buy ‘plastic credits,’ are they reducing waste or greenwashing?
- Companies and other entities are buying “plastic credits” allowing them to offset every ton of plastic they make with an equivalent amount of plastic waste collected and taken out of the environment elsewhere — often in poor nations lacking waste management programs. Several organizations now offer credits and will certify plastic collection and reuse.
- No worldwide standards or regulations govern the use of these plastic credits or assure their reliability, nor what gets done with the collected waste. Verra, which runs the world’s largest carbon credit verification system, but has come under fire for that system’s poor verification record, recently launched its own plastic credits verification system.
- Skeptics warn the plastic credit systems being created by various organizations, rather than recycling significant plastic waste, merely amount to greenwashing and allow companies to continue to make and use polluting materials, while running PR campaigns to make themselves look environmentally responsible.
- The credit system at best only deals with waste already manufactured and thrown out; it doesn’t address the need to ban the most toxic plastics, reduce production of others, or replace disposable single-use plastic with eco-friendly or reusable materials. Verra is urging that plastic credits become part of the U.N. global plastics treaty currently under negotiation.
Indonesia opens carbon trading market to both skepticism and hope
- Environmentalists have criticized Indonesia’s carbon trading mechanism, which had its first day of trading Sept. 26.
- The government touts the mechanism as a way to curb emissions and attract climate funding, but critics call carbon trading a false solution to climate change and a greenwashing attempt.
- Environmentalists say carbon trading could discourage companies from outright reducing emissions, enabling a “business as usual” attitude in which people and companies could buy carbon credits to continue polluting instead of changing their behaviors.
- A recent analysis by The Guardian and researchers from Corporate Accountability found that most of the top 50 emission offset projects — those that have sold the most carbon credits in the global market — were likely junk or worthless.
Beyond ‘no,’ more positive visions for conservation need communication (commentary)
- “I have become increasingly concerned that [environmentalists’] ongoing failures stem at least partially from really bad messaging,” a new op-ed states.
- “We are so focused on being against things that we keep missing an opportunity to be for something…We desperately need new climate-friendly visions for our economies and governance systems that we can all get behind, not just a laundry list of what not to do,” the Cambridge scholar continues.
- Some environmentalists are starting to push more positive communications and the development of transformative visions for conservation, such as developing “socio-bioeconomies” to replace existing economic models.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
How nonprofit journalism revealed many problems with the UN’s climate neutrality claims
- Despite claiming to be 95% “climate neutral,” the United Nations — a long-standing and vocal proponent of climate action — isn’t, a new report has found.
- Mongabay teamed up with reporters at The New Humanitarian in a yearlong investigation spanning multiple countries to investigate the U.N.’s claims.
- The investigation found that many projects that issue carbon credits to the U.N. were linked to environmental damage or displacement, and 2.7 million out of 6.6 million credits were linked to wind or hydropower — which experts say don’t represent true emissions reductions.
- Investigative reporter Jacob Goldberg from The New Humanitarian joins the podcast to explain how the team arrived at these surprising findings.
World owes it to Tanzania to keep Eastern Arc forests standing, study shows
- Tanzania’s Eastern Arc’s evergreen forests provide carbon sequestration that the world benefits, yet it’s local communities alone who shoulder the costs of keeping the forests standing.
- The authors of a new study recommend that international investments in conservation within the Eastern Arc worth $2 billion need to be made over the next 20 years.
- Without this, the authors say, the mountains’ forests and their extraordinary levels of biodiversity will be lost or degraded as local communities convert them to agricultural land or harvest timber from them.
Revealed: Why the UN is not climate neutral
- The UN has long championed the need for urgent climate solutions. It has claimed to be at least 95% “climate neutral” every year since 2018, largely through the use of carbon credits.
- The New Humanitarian teamed up with Mongabay to investigate the UN’s claims of climate neutrality. In an investigation that took a year and spanned multiple countries, reporters obtained details about carbon credits purchased by 33 UN entities, representing more than 75% of its reported offset portfolio since 2012.
- More than a dozen of the projects that issued the UN’s carbon credits were linked to reports of environmental damage, displacement, or health concerns. Others were deemed worthless by a number of leading climate experts.
‘The forest is so much more than money’: Q&A with Fijian carbon project ranger Jerry Lotawa
- Jerry Lotawa grew up in Drawa village in the forested highlands of Fiji’s largest island, and is now putting his ecological knowledge to use as lead ranger for the country’s first verified forest carbon project.
- The Indigenous-led project protects 4,120 hectares (10,181 acres) of rainforest that’s under threat from logging and clearing for agriculture, through a 30-year conservation lease that stretches across land belonging to eight mataqali (clans).
- The project has been selling carbon credits since 2018, with the proceeds distributed to the mataqali according to the amount of land they set aside for conservation, and each clan then choosing whether to share the money equally among its members or to hold it collectively for larger projects such as education and infrastructure.
- According to Lotawa, the project has helped locals to better understand the importance of their forest in maintaining their lives and livelihoods, and to pursue economic activities that don’t negatively impact the ecosystem.
Photos: Fiji’s first Indigenous-owned carbon credit project
- Fiji’s first verified forest carbon credit project is based in the Drawa rainforest on the country’s largest island, and has been earning income for its Indigenous landowners for five years now, in exchange for keeping their forests standing amid pressure from logging companies to fell its ancient trees.
- To make sure the project offers a compelling alternative to quick cash from logging permits, alternative livelihood opportunities are important ways to provide day-to-day income for individuals, alongside the cash from carbon credits that’s disbursed to mataqali (clans) on a quarterly basis and often used for collective projects.
- A number of local young men have been trained as rangers to monitor the protected areas, while other villagers, mostly women, are benefiting from their roles in a growing rainforest honey business — though scaling up the business to a more lucrative level remains a challenge.
Brazil cap-and-trade carbon framework in sight, but agriculture gets a pass
- Brazil’s Senate is expected to vote this month on a bill introducing a cap-and-trade carbon market aimed at regulating industry emissions.
- Thousands of companies across most sectors would have their carbon emissions capped at 25,000 metric tons per year; notably, however, this doesn’t include the agricultural sector, Brazil’s leading cause of deforestation and emissions.
- The bill also aims to combat unethical carbon credit practices by giving Indigenous and traditional communities the right to generate and sell credits on their territories.
- The bill is widely regarded as the best yet for a regulated carbon market; however, experts say it’s overly focused on carbon credit generation and fails to encourage the discontinuation of fossil fuel use, while also potentially putting “tremendous pressure” on Indigenous territories.
Cambodia approves, then suspends, marble mine in Keo Seima REDD+ project
- The Cambodian government has suspended a planned marble mine inside a wildlife sanctuary that it had approved just months earlier.
- It’s not clear why this commercial extractive concession inside a protected area was approved in the first place, or why it’s now been suspended (but not canceled).
- The mine would have threatened an important REDD+ project in Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary that benefits both local communities and the area’s biodiversity.
- The REDD+ project is also a bulwark against deforestation; satellite data show it suffers far less forest loss than other parts of the wider wildlife sanctuary and surrounding areas that overlap with concessions.
What would it cost to protect the Congo Rainforest?
- The Congo Basin holds the world’s second-largest rainforest — the majority of which is in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) — playing a vital role in carbon storage and ecological services that millions of people and species rely upon.
- However, the DRC is a nation with the second-highest rate of tropical deforestation behind Brazil. Meanwhile, Gabon says it has acted to protect its forests but hasn’t reaped the promised rewards.
- International commitments to protect the Congo Rainforest are historically meager compared with what experts say is actually needed, and many of these commitments go unfulfilled.
- On this episode of Mongabay Explores the Congo Basin, we speak with experts about what’s needed to overcome hurdles to financing forest protection to benefit conservation, climate and communities: Paolo Cerutti, senior scientist and DRC unit head at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR-ICRAF); Chadrack Kafuti at Ghent University; Wahida Patwa Patwa-Shah, senior regional technical specialist, UNDP Climate Hub; and Lee White, minister of water, forests, the sea and environment in Gabon.
REDD+ projects falling far short of claimed carbon cuts, study finds
- New research reveals that forest carbon credits are not offsetting the vast majority of emissions that providers claim.
- A team of scientists looked at 26 REDD+ deforestation-prevention project sites on three continents, leading to questions about how the developers calculate the impact of their projects.
- The researchers found that about 94% of the credits from these projects don’t represent real reductions in carbon emissions.
- Verra, the world’s largest carbon credit certifier, said the methods the team used to arrive at that conclusion were flawed, but also added it was in the process of overhauling its own REDD+ standards.
Macron touts forest conservation while promoting gas project on PNG visit
- During a recent visit to Papua New Guinea, French President Emmanuel Macron spent time with both fossil fuel executives and conservationists.
- Macron attended a presentation on the Managalas Conservation Area, which is supported by France as well as other European countries, and praised Indigenous peoples’ protection of the forest.
- During Macron’s visit, French firm TotalEnergies voted to undertake construction of a $10 billion liquefied natural gas project that will release an estimated 220 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.
Massive carbon offset deal with Dubai-based firm draws fire in Liberia
- According to a draft contract seen by Mongabay, Liberia may sign away the rights to nearly 10% of its total land mass to a United Arab Emirates-based firm for carbon offset development.
- The firm is owned by Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, the youngest member of Dubai’s royal family and an investor in energy projects across Africa and the Middle East.
- Environmental groups in Liberia say the deal could violate multiple laws, including those meant to protect community land rights.
- The deal comes as the UAE prepares to host the COP28 climate conference, where rulemaking around carbon markets will be a hot agenda item.
In Sabah, natural capital agreement surfaces again, despite critics
- In October 2021, an agreement signed without public knowledge by members of the Sabah state government, a Singaporean firm and an Australian consultancy committed 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of land in the Bornean state to a 100-year carbon deal.
- Since Mongabay surfaced news of the agreement in November 2021, the project has stalled in the face of a wave of criticism about its origins and planned implementation.
- In recent weeks, the proponents of the deal, including Sabah’s Deputy Chief Minister Jeffrey Kitingan, have publicly resumed efforts to bring the agreement into force.
- Civil society groups opposed to the project say that concerns remain over Indigenous rights and lack of transparency or details about the planned project.
Forest campaign group renews charge that carbon credit verification schemes are flawed
- A new assessment conducted by Rainforest Foundation UK raises fresh concerns about the validity of carbon offsetting schemes.
- The campaign group claims that all the leading carbon credit verification schemes have allowed millions of credits to enter the voluntary carbon market which do not accurately represent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
- RFUK is calling for a shift in emphasis to measures like global carbon levies and debt relief for poor countries, which it says would address root causes of emissions.
- Verra and several REDD+ project managers told Mongabay RFUK’s analysis is ideologically motivated, insisting that while verifying credits is not perfect, it is producing genuine, positive results.
Why should funding Amazon forest sustainability be the world’s top priority? (commentary)
- In this opinion piece, Jonah Wittkamper, Mariana Senna, and Ricardo Politi argue that donors should urgently scale up support for the development of an Amazon bioeconomy based around protecting the world’s largest rainforest.
- Without such intervention, there is a risk of the Amazon rainforest ecosystem collapsing, a development that would destabilize regional rainfall, unleash massive carbon emissions, and drive large-scale species extinction.
- “Jumpstarting the region’s bioeconomy could create a permanent solution by shifting local financial incentives away from deforestation,” they write. “Philanthropy for Amazon bioeconomy development could only be necessary for several years. Catalytic funding could enable the economies of forest protection and regeneration to outcompete the economies of deforestation,” the op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
From cardamom to carbon: Bold new Tanzanian project is regrowing a rainforest
- Farmers in eastern Tanzania are regrowing rainforest trees on part of their land.
- The farmers receive payments from the sale of carbon credits to supplement their incomes and to compensate them for loss of land and cash crops.
- So far, close to 270,000 trees have been planted on 200 hectares (494 acres) of farms located on the flanks of the Nguru Mountains.
- Nguru’s forests, home to a wealth of unique animal and plant species, are under increasing pressure from farmers who fell trees to grow crops, including valuable cardamom spice.
As one Brazilian state takes up carbon trading, others may fall for the ‘illusion’
- A recent agreement will allow the Brazilian state of Tocantins to sell carbon credits to Swiss oil-trading company Mercuria.
- Proponents see the deal as an opportunity for Tocantins to obtain financial resources that will support the state’s environmental policies.
- However, carbon offsets are hotly debated and many experts say the carbon market does more harm than good for the environment and global greenhouse gas emissions.
- The deal is likely to have a ripple effect on surrounding Amazonian states, experts say, leading to future carbon offset deals and prolonging the global use of fossil fuels.
Head of Verra, top carbon credit certifier, to leave in June
- David Antonioli is the founding CEO of Verra, the world’s most prominent carbon credit standards organization.
- Antonioli will leave the post in June amid increasing scrutiny of carbon markets and credits, as well as the methodologies by which they are certified to ensure they provide climate benefits that do not come at the expense of communities.
- Indigenous groups and forest communities are often key participants in restoration and protection efforts to boost carbon sequestration.
- But they say that little of the financing for climate mitigation flows directly to them, and they also want a more prominent role in the discussions about climate change mitigation projects and the future of mechanisms like carbon credits and markets.
Indigenous groups voice support for REDD+, despite flaws
- A letter published May 9 and signed by a group of Indigenous-led organizations backs a mechanism for providing compensation in return for forest protection efforts known as REDD+, which is short for “reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.”
- The aim of REDD+ is to provide results-based funding for economic development tied to those protection efforts, with financing coming from credits sold to companies and individuals to account for their carbon emissions.
- But critics question how carbon credits are calculated, and others have concerns about the lack of consent and participation by Indigenous and local communities most affected by REDD+ work.
- The letter argues that REDD+, in despite its shortcomings, is one of the few direct funding flows to communities for climate-related work, and they call for greater inclusion in the broader conversation about REDD+ and carbon credits and offsets.
Questions over accounting and inclusion mar Guyana’s unprecedented carbon scheme
- Guyana has put nearly all the forests in the country on the carbon market, allowing it to sign a carbon credit deal with petroleum company Hess Corporation worth $750 million, with 15% of funds going to Indigenous communities.
- However, some climate experts have questioned how ART, the independent carbon credit issuer, calculates the emissions reductions for forests that are already intact and under little threat of deforestation, saying they’re vastly overstated and bending the rules to create money.
- There are disputes between Indigenous groups about whether communities were properly and legally consulted before all their lands were put onto the carbon market.
- ART maintains that its methodology for calculating carbon reduction is conservative and important to protect intact forests, while the government insists that it properly consulted Indigenous leaders before it included their forests in the carbon scheme.
Peru national park sees deforestation spike despite carbon credit program: report
- A March report from the Associated Press revealed that the carbon credit program in Peru’s Cordillera Azul National Park has been financially profitable but ineffective as a means of conservation.
- Despite that more than 28 million credits have been sold since the program’s launch in 2008, average annual deforestation has risen significantly.
- One source of the problem is that officials inflated the benefits of the program and the threats facing the park.
Newly published carbon market standards aim to increase integrity, confidence
- The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), an independent governance body, released a set of core carbon principles (CCPs) intended to provide a “threshold standard” for quality in the global carbon market.
- To earn the CCP label, projects must address governance issues such as verification and transparency, ensure that the emissions reductions and removals of carbon actually happen at claimed levels above what would have been accomplished under the business-as-usual scenario, and adhere to strict guidelines intended to ensure that projects don’t harm communities or the environment, according to the ICVCM’s statement.
- The global voluntary carbon market sits at a pivotal crossroads, as several investigations have raised concerns about how much the projects supported by the purchase of carbon credits actually protect or restore forests as a climate change-mitigation strategy.
Carbon credits from award-winning Kenyan offset suspended by Verra
- The carbon offset certifier Verra told Mongabay it had initiated a “quality control review” of the Northern Kenya Grassland Carbon Project, which claims to store carbon by managing Indigenous livestock grazing routes.
- The project has been a darling of carbon market supporters, winning a series of awards at COP27 last year, where it was described as “exemplary” by Kenyan President William Ruto.
- A new report by the advocacy group Survival International said the offset was altering long-standing Indigenous herding practices and couldn’t accurately account for how much carbon it was removing from the atmosphere.
- Purchasers of carbon credits generated by the product include Netflix, Meta and NatWest.
Companies eye ‘carbon insetting’ as winning climate solution, but critics are wary
- A tool that wields the techniques of carbon offsets is surging among companies claiming that it reduces their carbon footprints. The tool, known by some as “insetting,” had simmered for more than a decade on the fringes of climate action among brands that rely on agriculture, but is now expanding to other sectors.
- Insetting is defined as company projects to reduce or remove emissions within their own internal supply chains. Proponents say it is valuable for agriculture-based firms struggling to address indirect emissions from land that has already been deforested. Like offsets, insetting can bring social and economic benefits to communities.
- Some oppose the tool outright, saying it is subject to the same problems as offsets (including lack of permanence and enforceable standards), but can also be worse as it can lead to double-counting climate benefits and can have weaker oversight.
- Having now become popular with major corporations such as Nestlé and PepsiCo, insetting as a climate tool is poised to see increased scrutiny as companies and researchers figure out its place in corporate action and reckon with the urgency to reduce emissions from agriculture.
Mobilizing Amazon societies to reduce forest carbon emissions and unlock the carbon market (commentary)
- Brazil could generate $10 billion or more from the global voluntary carbon market over the next four years through the sale of credits from Amazon states’ jurisdictional REDD+ programs; some states are already finalizing long-term purchase agreements.
- This funding would flow to those who are protecting the forest – Indigenous peoples and traditional communities, farmers, businesses, and government agencies – and the prospect of this funding could mobilize collective action to reduce emissions from illegal deforestation and degradation.
- Rapid progress in reducing emissions from Amazon deforestation and forest degradation – which represent half of Brazil’s nation-wide emissions – would also position Brazil to capture significant international funding for its national decarbonization process through the regulated carbon market that is under development through the UN Paris Agreement.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Scientists map nearly 10 billion trees, stored carbon, in Africa’s drylands
- A recent study has mapped the locations of 9.9 billion trees across Africa’s drylands, a region below the Sahara Desert and north of the equator.
- The research, which combined satellite mapping, machine learning and field measurements, led to an estimate of 840 million metric tons of carbon contained in the trees.
- This figure is much lower than the amount of carbon held in Africa’s tropical rainforests.
- However, these trees provide critical biodiversity habitat and help boost agricultural productivity, and this method provides a tool to track both degradation and tree-planting efforts in the region.
Carbon market intermediaries act with little transparency, according to report
- A new report reveals that few of the brokers, resellers and cryptocurrency vendors that act as intermediaries in the voluntary carbon market reveal the commissions and markups on the credits they buy and sell.
- This lack of transparency makes it difficult, if not impossible, to accurately assess how much money from these purchases is finding its way to climate mitigation efforts.
- The report calls on intermediaries to disclose their fees and on supporting organizations to share more information about these transactions, with the goal of illuminating the true potential impact of the voluntary carbon market on climate change.
Biodiversity credits: An opportunity to create a new financing framework (commentary)
- Biodiversity credits have the potential to accelerate funding for biodiversity conservation while benefiting local communities and biodiversity custodians.
- To make voluntary biodiversity credits work for nature and its custodians, we need to step out of the carbon credit framing for technical, social and practical reasons.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Updated guide gives practical advice for buyers of tropical forest carbon credits
- An updated guide written by eight conservation and Indigenous organizations offers a detailed path forward for companies that want to compensate for their carbon emissions in addition to decarbonizing their supply chains.
- Though the carbon market faces criticism over the true value it brings to climate change mitigation, proponents say it can complement earnest efforts to decarbonize supply chains if used properly.
- The updated Tropical Forest Credit Integrity guide calls for due diligence on the part of companies to ensure the credits they purchase will result in climate gains.
- The authors of the guide also stress the importance of including Indigenous peoples and local communities in decisions about offset efforts.
Forest carbon offsets are a tool, not a silver bullet (commentary)
- The Guardian recently published an article questioning the effectiveness of forest carbon offsets, immediately followed by another in Die Zeit about ‘phantom offsets.’
- These criticisms are not without precedent: carbon offsetting is often presented either as a panacea or as corporate greenwashing that distracts from the difficult task of reducing actual greenhouse gas emissions.
- But as two leaders from CIFOR-ICRAF argue in a new commentary, “It is neither one nor the other. It is a tool. No particular policy instrument stands out as a ‘silver bullet,’ but improving the coherence and complementarity of the policy mix across government levels can enhance the effectiveness of policies.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Carbon markets entice, but confuse, corporations: Report
- A new report from the environmental nonprofit Conservation International and the We Mean Business Coalition, a partnership of climate NGOs, found that many corporations are interested in using carbon markets to address their emissions.
- The report, released Jan. 12, drew from the responses of 502 managers in charge of sustainability at companies in the U.S., U.K. and Europe.
- Carbon markets, which allow businesses and individuals to offset their emissions by supporting projects aimed at, say, reducing tropical deforestation, are seen by some as a necessary step to reducing carbon emissions globally.
- However, others see carbon markets and the credits they sell as a tool that allows companies to continue releasing carbon with little benefit to the overall climate.
Emmanuel Macron’s “Biodiversity Credits”: What are we talking about? (commentary)
- Carbon credits have long been a part of the climate change discourse and so the universe of different types of carbon credits is fairly well understood. What about biodiversity credits, at the heart of an initiative announced by Emmanuel Macron at COP27?
- Broadly speaking, two cases can be distinguished: on the one hand, regulatory or voluntary biodiversity offset systems with offsets, based on the “no net loss” principle associated with the avoid-reduce-compensate (ARC) sequence. On the other hand, credits not intended for offsetting, modeled on voluntary carbon credits, which are, above all, financing vehicles for actions in favor of biodiversity.
- Alain Karsenty, an economist at CIRAD, explores their interest and limits in relation to systems already in place or proposed elsewhere.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Amazon-produced cacao offers climate solutions
- Cacao plantations in the Brazilian state of Pará have helped to recover about 150,000 hectares (370,660 acres) of degraded land in the last 25 years.
- The Brazilian government has supported agroforestry within key commercial crops, such as cacao, to fight rampant deforestation in the Amazon and offset carbon.
- By 2030, another 250,000 cacao trees are expected to be planted in the region, according to some sources, increasing cacao’s currently cultivated area by 25%.
- One hectare of cacao plantation under an agroforestry system can remove 165 tons of carbon from the atmosphere, Brazilian research shows, which could make carbon markets an attractive opportunity for farmers in the Amazon.
Words that didn’t make the cut: What happened to Indigenous rights at COP27
- This year’s U.N. climate conference saw the highest participation of Indigenous peoples to date, with more than 300 delegates from around the world calling for agreements to explicitly include a human rights approach.
- Although Indigenous issues were ambitiously mainstreamed across agenda items at the start of the conference, countries began to compromise in the final days when there were a lot of topics still not concluded, say Indigenous negotiators.
- Agreements on the rules around carbon offset markets included limited language on recognizing the rights of Indigenous peoples and the need to consult communities on the use of land.
- Indigenous delegates warmly welcomed the creation of a loss and damage fund which they say will greatly help Indigenous communities already impacted by climate change.
Carbon offsets: A key tool for climate action, or a license to emit?
- The carbon offset market has existed for 25 years, and experts say there are still fundamental problems in its structure. Some question the underlying concepts, and refuse to consider it a tool for climate action.
- Part of the issue is that transparency is low. Buyers and sellers of carbon offsets often never meet and are separated by numerous intermediaries with their own profit incentives: registries, verifiers, and brokers. It’s not clear who buys offsets or which emissions are offset.
- Most experts say the offset market is not meant to contribute meaningful change to emissions, but rather to be an extra tool to channel funds toward sustainable development when companies are failing to transition from fossil fuels.
Australian oil and gas firm Invictus awarded carbon offset project in Zimbabwe
- The REDD+ project covers three national forest reserves near Hwange National Park and comes as Invictus has begun to drill for oil and gas in the north of the country
- Invictus says based on estimates still to be verified, the offset project could sequester 1 million metric tons of carbon per year, making its oil and gas drilling carbon neutral.
- Conservationists question the logic behind leveraging state forest reserves for REDD+ projects, saying they favor instead a “wildlife economy approach” to restoring landscapes.
New tech aims to track carbon in every tree, boost carbon market integrity
- Climate scientists and data engineers have developed a new digital platform billed as the first-ever global tool for accurately calculating the carbon stored in every tree on the planet.
- Founded on two decades of research and development, the new platform from nonprofit CTrees leverages artificial intelligence-enabled satellite datasets to give users a near-real-time picture of forest carbon storage and emissions around the world.
- With forest protection and restoration at the center of international climate mitigation efforts, CTrees is set to officially launch at COP27 in November, with the overall aim of bringing an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability to climate policy initiatives that rely on forests to offset carbon emissions.
- Forest experts broadly welcome the new platform, but also underscore the risk of assessing forest restoration and conservation projects solely by the amount of carbon sequestered, which can sometimes be a red herring in achieving truly sustainable and equitable forest management.
Australian miner threatens lawsuit against PNG for scrapping carbon scheme
- Australian mining and energy firm Mayur Resources announced in July that it would scrap plans to build a planned coal-fired power plant in Papua New Guinea, instead focusing on carbon offset projects in the country.
- Soon after, PNG authorities issued a public notice saying Mayur’s carbon offset project was canceled because of breaches of the country’s forestry laws.
- Mayur is now threatening to sue the PNG government for canceling the carbon scheme.
BP exploited Mexican communities hoping to benefit from carbon credits: report
- A report published this month in Bloomberg Green said oil and gas company BP has been buying carbon credits from Mexican villages below market value, raising questions about the carbon credit market’s viability as a tool for transitioning companies to green practices.
- BP purchased carbon credits from residents across 59 villages for just $4 per ton of avoided emissions. The true market price is often more than double that.
- Groups involved in conservation efforts, such as the World Resources Institute and Pronatura, were also involved in the creation of the controversial carbon credit program.
‘That’s a scam’: Indian firm’s REDD+ carbon deal in the DRC raises concern
- Environmental and human rights advocacy organizations say an Indian company has misled communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, convincing them to sign away the rights to sell carbon credits from the restoration, reforestation or avoided deforestation of locally managed forests.
- These forests, managed under a structure known by the French acronym CFCL, provide communities with control over how land is managed while giving them access to the resources the forests provide, proponents of the initiative say.
- But the contracts, the implications of which were not fairly or adequately explained to community members, may restrict their access to the forests for generations to come, the advocacy groups say.
- These organizations and the communities are now calling on the Congolese government to cancel the contracts.
For companies shopping for quality carbon credits, a new guide offers help
- The newly published Tropical Forest Credit Integrity (TFCI) guide aims to help companies looking to make smarter purchases of tropical forest credits, one strategy for lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
- Tropical forests carbon credits allow companies to offset their carbon emissions by paying for the conservation of forests.
- The guide says companies should make sure they’re purchasing high-quality credits that contribute to real-world reductions of deforestation in tropical forests.
- It also urges them to be transparent about carbon credit purchases and establish a good-faith relationship with local and Indigenous communities.
Can wonder plant spekboom really bring smiles back to sad South African towns?
- Botanists are working on an ambitious project to restore 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of degraded land in South Africa that were previously covered by thickets of the indigenous succulent spekboom (Portulacaria afra).
- Farmers have stripped the land of its native thicket over the course of decades of commercial agriculture and livestock keeping, and following extended droughts, it’s now turning to desert.
- Spekboom, much praised for its ability to sequester carbon, is not only a resilient native plant, but its growth naturally promotes the recovery of other species.
- Carbon credits are one promising source of funding for restoration that could prove profitable for landowners and workers, though some critics say planting spekboom as an offset lacks a scientific basis.
“Indigenous people are fighting to protect a natural equilibrium”: Q&A with Patricia Gualinga
- Increase in legal and illegal mining in the Ecuadorian Amazon, along with the emergence of carbon credit system that bypass Indigenous people, are posing a challenge to Amazonian communities.
- Patricia Gualinga is a Kichwa leader in Ecuador and member of Amazonian Women (Mujeres Amazónicas), a coalition of women environmental and land defenders.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Patricia Gualinga talks about Indigenous resistance in the face of extractive threats and the popularity of carbon credits in the Amazon rainforest.
PNG suspends new carbon deals, scrambles to write rules for the schemes
- Papua New Guinea’s government is working to create new regulations governing voluntary carbon schemes, which are arrangements negotiated directly between developers and resource owners.
- While the new laws are developed, the country’s environment ministry has imposed a moratorium on new voluntary carbon deals in the country.
- The moratorium, and development of a stronger legal framework, comes after “significant red flags” were raised over a proposed carbon credit deal in the country’s Oro province.
NGOs alert U.N. to furtive 2-million-hectare carbon deal in Malaysian Borneo
- Civil society organizations have complained to the United Nations about an opaque “natural capital” agreement in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo.
- The agreement, signed behind closed doors in October 2021, involved representatives from the state government and Hoch Standard Pte. Ltd., a Singaporean firm. But it did not involve substantive input from the state’s numerous Indigenous communities, many of whom live in or near forests.
- The terms ostensibly give Hoch Standard the right to monetize carbon and other natural capital from Sabah’s forests for 100 years.
- Along with the recent letter to the U.N., the state’s attorney general has questioned whether the agreement is enforceable without changes to key provisions. An Indigenous leader is also suing the state over the agreement, and Hoch Standard may be investigated by the Singaporean government after rival political party leaders in Sabah reported the company to Singapore’s ambassador in Malaysia.
Revealed: Timber giant quietly converts Congo logging sites to carbon schemes
- An investigation by El País/Planeta Futuro has found evidence of irregularities in the allocation of “conservation concessions” and carbon-trading schemes in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- The investigation uncovered allegations that concessions covering millions of hectares were illegally reassigned in 2020 and converted to carbon credit projects without public oversight. The Portuguese-owned titles overlap with a protected area and Indigenous lands.
- The boom in opaque “conservation” titles controlled by foreign investors raises concerns over the potential for future carbon offset abuses.
- Mongabay has partnered with El País/Planeta Futuro to publish this investigation in English. This story was produced with the support of the Rainforest Journalism Investigations Network (RIN) of the Pulitzer Center.
Malaysian officials dampen prospects for giant, secret carbon deal in Sabah
- The attorney general of the Malaysian state of Sabah has said that a contentious deal for the right to sell credits for carbon and other natural capital will not come into force unless certain provisions are met.
- Mongabay first reported that the 100-year agreement, which involves the protection of some 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) from activities such as logging, was signed in October 2021 between the state and a Singapore-based firm called Hoch Standard.
- Several leaders in the state, including the attorney general, have called for more due diligence on the companies involved in the transaction.
- Civil society representatives say that a technical review of the agreement is necessary to vet claims about its financial value to the state and its feasibility.
Podcast: ‘Carbon cowboys’ and illegal logging
- Papua New Guinea has been the world’s largest tropical timber exporter since 2014. More than 70% of the timber produced in the country is considered illegal.
- Despite two government inquiries finding the majority of land leases on which logging occurs to be illegal, these land leases still remain in force today.
- While carbon trading has been touted as a solution, activists, journalists and even a provincial governor have expressed concerns over its economic benefits and the continued loss of customary land rights.
- For this episode of Mongabay Explores we interview Gary Juffa, governor of Oro province in Papua New Guinea, and investigative journalist, Rachel Donald.
At a plantation in Central Africa, Big Oil tries to go net-zero
- In March 2021, French oil giant TotalEnergies announced that it would be developing a 40,000-hectare (99.000-acre) forest in the Republic of Congo that will sequester 500,000 tons of carbon per year.
- The project is part of a renewed global push for governments and corporations to hit their emissions targets partially by the use of carbon credits, also known as offsets.
- But advocates say what TotalEnergies describes as a “forest” is a commercial acacia plantation that will produce timber for sale, with little detail on who stands to profit or lose access to land.
Community project helps Kenya aim for climate goals one mangrove tree at a time
- Along Kenya’s southeastern coast, three communities are restoring 460 hectares (1,137 acres) of the Vanga mangrove forest to meet the country’s emission reduction targets, provide a buffer against natural disasters, and support fishing livelihoods.
- The Vanga Blue Forest project has planted more than 1,000 native mangrove trees since it started in 2019, and aims to work with neighboring communities in Tanzania to restore mangrove forests along 140 kilometers (87 miles) of the East African coastline.
- The early stages of the project were a series of trial and error to achieve successful reforestation, as previous efforts a decade earlier had only a 10% survival rate among the 750,000 trees planted.
- The project is involved in the international carbon trade market and has so far sold $44,433 of carbon credits by accumulating 5,023 metric tons of carbon above ground.
Indigenous leader sues over Borneo natural capital deal
- An Indigenous leader in Sabah is suing the Malaysian state on the island of Borneo over an agreement signing away the rights to monetize the natural capital coming from the state’s forests to a foreign company.
- Civil society and Indigenous organizations say local communities were not consulted or asked to provide input prior to the agreement’s signing on Oct. 28.
- Further questions have arisen about whether the company, Hoch Standard, that secured the rights under the agreement has the required experience or expertise necessary to implement the terms of the agreement.
Podcast: What do two giant land deals mean for the future of Southeast Asia’s forests?
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we take a look at two stories from Southeast Asia that highlight the importance of land rights and Free, Prior, and Informed Consent for Indigenous and local communities.
- We speak with Cynthia Ong, founder and Chief Executive Facilitator of Land Empowerment Animals People (LEAP), an NGO based in the state of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo, who tells us about the fallout from a story broken by Mongabay about a carbon deal signed by government officials in Sabah without consulting local communities. The deal covers more than 2 million hectares or 4.9 million acres of the state’s forests for at least the next 100 years.
- Our second guest is Gerry Flynn, a Mongabay contributor based in Cambodia who has been covering a recent government decree that made 127,000 hectares or nearly 314,000 acres of protected areas available for sale or rent. Flynn tells us why there are fears that it will amount to nothing more than a land grab by powerful interests, though the decree is ostensibly intended to make land titles available to landless families.
Bornean communities locked into 2-million-hectare carbon deal they don’t know about
- Leaders in Sabah, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo, signed a nature conservation agreement on Oct. 28 with a group of foreign companies — apparently without the meaningful participation of Indigenous communities.
- The agreement, with the consultancy Tierra Australia and a private equity-backed funder from Singapore, calls for the marketing of carbon and other ecosystem services to companies looking, for example, to buy credits to offset their emissions.
- The deal involves more than 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of forest, which would be restored and protected from mining, logging and industrial agriculture for the next 100-200 years.
- But land rights experts have raised concerns about the lack of consultation with communities living in and around these forests in the negotiations to this point.
Look beyond carbon credits to put a price on nature’s services, experts say
- Valuing nature as a “new asset class” could be the key to getting trillions of dollars in investments to flow to nature-based solutions, experts said at a recent sustainability conference in Singapore.
- Because policymakers and investors haven’t been able to properly value nature, the finance industry has been using carbon markets as a proxy for investing in it.
- Governments should account for the ecosystem benefits of nature beyond carbon capture, the experts said.
- Proper valuation of nature’s benefits requires inputs from not only investors, but also scientists, communities and NGOs.
For companies eyeing net-zero carbon emissions, ‘no clue how to get there’
- Voluntary carbon markets have become the go-to for companies trying to achieve net-zero carbon, but curbing emissions is still most important, executives said at a recent sustainability conference in Singapore.
- Voluntary carbon markets can drive huge amounts of finance into developing countries for conservation, serve as a price indicator for carbon, and help companies offset emissions, but must play a secondary role to decarbonization, they said.
- The business leaders added that companies recognize the need to curb emissions, but are struggling with choosing and implementing effective decarbonization solutions.
- The root of the problem is a lack of robust carbon measurement technology and methods, they said.
Forest finance expected to advance under new TREES standard and LEAF Coalition
- The latest edition of the TREES standard for forest carbon crediting attempts to bring together the best of what the private sector can do and the best of what governments can do to protect forests. It is explicit about how projects can be integrated into jurisdiction-level accounting.
- While effectively directing capital to forest communities on the ground, REDD+ projects have been dogged by methodological problems and what in some cases appear to be spurious claims of climate impact.
- The designers of TREES say that with its jurisdictional scale and transparent carbon accounting guidelines, it will better address the main credibility risks so far associated with REDD+ carbon credits.
- Almost 15 years after the original REDD framework, many regard TREES and the LEAF Coalition announced in April 2021 as the first real attempt at credible REDD+ implementation at scale.
Amazon, meet Amazon: Tech giant rolls out rainforest carbon offset project
- Tech giant Amazon has announced a nature-based carbon removal project in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest in partnership with The Nature Conservancy (TNC).
- The project will help small farmers produce sustainable agricultural produce through reforestation and regenerative agroforestry programs, in exchange for carbon credits that will go to the internet company.
- Called the Agroforestry and Restoration Accelerator, the initiative is expected to support 3,000 small farmers in Pará state and restore an area the size of Seattle in the first three years, and in the process remove up to 10 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through 2050.
- In addition to addressing climate and social issues, the partners say the project intends to address the shortcomings of the carbon credit market by creating new standards for the industry.
Even as the government bets big on carbon, REDD+ flounders in Madagascar
- The Malagasy government’s decision to ban the sale of carbon credits as it reworks its REDD+ strategy has left all existing REDD+ projects in a limbo.
- The island nation only has a handful of projects, all helmed by foreign NGOs, which take advantage of the U.N.’s reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) program to raise money by selling carbon credits.
- Madagascar’s environment minister singled out an initiative by U.K.-based nonprofit Blue Ventures, criticizing it for striking a deal promising too little: $27,000 per year for 10 villages. The NGO disputes this appraisal.
- The government’s move to nationalize carbon ownership comes against the backdrop of familiar concerns about REDD+, in particular: how much do communities benefit from keeping forests standing?
Hartree Partners to channel $2 billion toward new carbon credits
- Global energy and commodities trading house Hartree Partners has pledged to channel more than $2 billion of private sector investments toward creating new carbon credits.
- Companies can purchase carbon credits from sources that are protecting or restoring natural carbon sinks to offset their carbon emissions. However, as more companies move toward voluntary carbon markets, the demand for carbon credits is expected to outpace the supply.
- Hartree Partners will be working with Wildlife Works, an established conservation organization, to create 20 million voluntary carbon credits a year, beginning in 2023 — representing a 40% increase in the availability of verified, avoided-deforestation projects.
- The voluntary carbon market has been the subject of much criticism and debate, with advocates arguing that it is a means to reduce emissions through safeguarding nature. Critics say the market is hard to regulate and may allow companies to avoid the equally crucial work of reducing emissions.
Brazil’s Amazon is now a carbon source, unprecedented study reveals
- According to a study published July 14 in Nature, the Brazilian Amazon is emitting more carbon than it captures.
- This study is the first to use direct atmospheric measurements, across a wide geographic region, collected over nearly a decade that account for background concentrations of atmospheric gases.
- Eastern Amazonia is emitting more carbon than western Amazonia, and southern Amazonia is a net carbon source; Southeastern Amazonia, in particular, switched from being a carbon sink to a carbon source during the study period. The reason: a disruption in the balance of growth and decay and emissions from fires.
- These results have important implications for policy initiatives such as REDD+ that rely on forests to offset carbon emissions: Because different regions of the Amazon differ in their ability to absorb carbon, schemes that use one value for the carbon-capturing ability of the whole Amazon need to be reexamined, scientists say.
When it comes to carbon capture, tree invasions can do more harm than good
- Trees are a logical solution to climate change, but allowing or encouraging trees to move into areas where they don’t typically grow, such as tundras and grasslands, can actually do more harm than good.
- Invasive trees may capture less carbon than the treeless ecosystem they overrun due to soil disturbance, increased risk of fires, and changes in light absorption, a recent review paper shows.
- These results have implications for policies and initiatives, particularly in places where carbon credits have been used to discourage the removal of invasive, non-native trees.
- Land managers need to consider much more than aboveground carbon, according to the paper’s authors, who say that, “Trees are not always the answer.”
Singapore launches new carbon marketplace for nature conservancy projects
- Singapore last month launched a carbon trading marketplace backed by its state investment firm, stock exchange and largest bank.
- The Climate Impact X initiative has two main platforms: a marketplace for nature-based projects, and an exchange where carbon credits can be freely traded in larger quantities.
- Demand for nature-based carbon credits — those linked to ecosystem conservation and restoration projects — has been growing in recent years, but high-quality credits remain scarce.
- The new platform aims to harness the potential of nature-based solutions in Southeast Asia, protecting at-risk forests while unlocking high-quality carbon credits for businesses.
‘We guard the forest’: Carbon markets without community recognition not viable
- Researchers looked at 31 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America that hold almost 70% of the world’s tropical forests and 62% of the total feasible natural climate solution potential, and found that most of the tropical forested countries looking to benefit from carbon markets still need to define community carbon rights.
- There is significant public and private interest to use carbon markets to fight climate change and work toward the goals of the Paris Agreement, with the global LEAF coalition pushing to mobilize at least $1 billion to tackle deforestation and forest degradation.
- While carbon markets appear to be a win-win for protecting the forests and promoting developing economies, if implemented without meaningfully including communities, they could worsen risks faces by these communities including increasing land grabs and efforts to capture associated rents, and increasing threats of human rights violations, criminalization and conflicts.
- Studies increasingly show that Indigenous peoples and local communities are the best stewards of tropical forests, and that granting them land rights is a highly cost-effective way to reduce carbon emissions.
Click here to plant a tree: Q&A with Ecosia’s Pieter van Midwood
- Ecosia is a search engine that uses its advertising revenue to fund tree-planting projects; since its launch in 2009, the company has financed the planting of more than 124 million trees.
- In March 2021 alone, the Berlin-based company made nearly 2 million euros ($2.4 million), more than 40% of which went directly to tree planting in 14 countries across five continents, according to their financial reports,
- Mongabay spoke with Ecosia’s chief tree-planting officer, Pieter van Midwood, to learn more about Ecosia’s business model, its approach to tree planting, and the reforestation sector.
Governments, companies pledge $1 billion for tropical forests
- The U.S., U.K. and Norwegian governments, working with private companies, have launched a carbon credit program that they say will pay double the going rate over existing schemes.
- Others involved in the Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest finance (LEAF) coalition include Amazon, pharmaceutical giants GSK and Bayer, and consumer goods multinationals Nestlé and Unilever.
- The scheme is built on the REDD+ program, which has allowed companies to compensate for greenhouse gas emissions generated in their operations by paying tropical forest countries to keep an equivalent volume of carbon locked up in their forests.
- Its proponents say it improves on REDD+ by working with larger units of land, thus addressing the issues of leakage (deforestation being displaced to a nearby forest patch), and other methods are meant to ensure additionality (avoiding credits being issued from forests that would have been conserved anyway).
As COP26 looms and tropical deforestation soars, REDD+ debate roars on
- The United Nations REDD+ program (reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) has been operating for more than 13 years as a multipurpose initiative, intended to curb deforestation in tropical nations, sequester forest carbon, combat climate change, protect biodiversity, and aid poor rural communities.
- The REDD+ mechanism is largely paid for by wealthy industrialized countries contributing funds to less developed tropical nations, including those in the Amazon, Congo Basin and Indonesia.
- Some 600 REDD+ projects have been initiated to date (with some 400 still active), mostly implemented by socioenvironmental NGOs or for-profit project developers, and financed by more than $10 billion in donor funds in more than 65 countries. But evidence of avoided deforestation and reduced carbon emissions is controversial.
- With the COP26 Glasgow climate summit looming in November, Mongabay invited experts to weigh in on the global initiative’s successes and failings, with some supporting expansion of REDD+ via revised program rules and funding, while others support major reforms, or even the initiative’s replacement.
Government inaction prompts voluntary REDD+ carbon credit boom in Brazil
- With the Bolsonaro government largely indifferent to participating in a carbon credit market, and amid intensifying pressure from clients and investors, a voluntary carbon credit market is booming in Brazil. The country, however, still doesn’t have any regulation about how and by whom credits can be issued.
- REDD+ projects that issue carbon credits for reforesting or avoiding deforestation have caught the attention of financial market players. Amid the new carbon credit trading firms, such as financial technology company Moss, and other initiatives, Brazilian projects offer both examples of success and failure in forest preservation.
- REDD+ supporters argue Brazil’s voluntary carbon credit market is allowing small-scale farmers and Indigenous and traditional people to get in the game, benefiting them financially, and helping conserve forests and protect the Earth’s climate.
- But critics say it’s difficult to ensure that forest conservation promises made today can be kept in the future, especially in a nation notorious for illegal deforestation and record forest fires. Also, protecting one area can simply drive the deforestation to another area.
Rainforests: 11 things to watch in 2021
- 2020 was a rough year for tropical rainforest conservation efforts. So what’s in store for 2021?
- Mongabay Founder Rhett A. Butler reviews some of 11 key things to watch in the world of rainforests in 2021.
- These include: the post COVID recovery; the transition of power in the U.S.; deforestation in Indonesia; deforestation in Brazil; the effects of the La Niña climate pattern; ongoing destabilization of tropical forests; government to government carbon deals; data that will allow better assessment of the impact of COVID on tropical forests; companies incorporating forest-risk into decision-making; ongoing violence against environmental defenders; and whether international policy meetings can get back on track.
Norway bumps rate to protect rainforests amid anticipated U.S. climate return
- Through partnerships with different forest-rich countries, Norway has doubled the price it pays for cuts in carbon dioxide emissions through avoided deforestation.
- Recent successes have come from Gabon and Indonesia, but more action is necessary as a 2020 report suggests rainforests are losing their ability to naturally absorb carbon dioxide emissions.
- Other countries are following Norway’s example: through the Central African Forest Initiative, President Emmanuel Macron of France and President Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo signed a letter of intent for $65 million to protect Congo’s forests.
- In the U.S., president-elect Joe Biden has named former secretary of state John Kerry as his climate czar, in a sign of the incoming administration’s recommitment to and seriousness about climate action, following a four-year leadership vacuum under Donald Trump.
REDD+ carbon and deforestation cuts in Amazon overestimated: Study
- A new study analyzed 12 REDD+ (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) voluntary projects conducted in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Researchers found that the projects’ claimed reductions in forest loss and carbon emissions were seriously overstated due to poorly set deforestation rate baselines that didn’t properly account for other successful forest loss reductions that were achieved separately by the Brazilian government.
- To correct this problem in future, the researchers expressed the “need to better align project- and national-level carbon accounting,” while at the same time striking a balance between “controlling conservation investment risk and ensuring the environmental integrity of carbon emission offsets.”
- Suggestions for achieving more reliable carbon accounting include: only taking into account the most recent years of deforestation, relying on more complex models that look at the price of agricultural commodities, and comparing deforestation to similar areas not involved in REDD+ projects.
In the battle to save forests, a make-or-break moment for REDD+
- In Part Two of this series delving into REDD+, Mongabay looks at whether it can still accomplish the stated mission, what it would take to make that happen, and why, despite more than a decade of disappointment and controversy, REDD+ true believers still hold out hope.
- REDD+ advocates have now hung their hopes on a private sector suddenly hungry to buy carbon credits to offset greenhouse gas emissions. Private sector demand for carbon credits, they hope, will increase the volume and push up the price of REDD+ carbon credits, both of which are necessary to drive much-needed financing into forest conservation.
- In early 2020, this hope appeared closer than ever to becoming a reality — then the coronavirus pandemic hit, causing private sector demand for carbon credits to plummet. Some of this decrease could turn out to be short term, but demand from at least one key sector, the airline industry, could take years to rebound.
- Another challenge facing REDD+ is a disagreement over whether individual project developers should be allowed to sell carbon credits directly to buyers, or if that should be left to the countries or states where the projects are located.
The U.N.’s grand plan to save forests hasn’t worked, but some still believe it can
- Part one explores REDD+’s evolution up to the present: how a lofty plan meant to generate large-scale financing for global forest conservation and climate mitigation became a patchwork of individual projects and programs that have failed to achieve the central goal of curbing deforestation.
- Recent developments could represent something of a turning point for REDD+, including the first large-scale, “results-based” funding — the conditional financial incentives seen as key to REDD+’s success — from the U.N.-REDD Programme and the World Bank, and a surge in private-sector dollars for forest conservation and reforestation projects that could mark the beginning of a significant new source of cash.
- However, challenges remain to delivering REDD+ at its intended scale, not least of which is the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, which could potentially trip up progress just as REDD+ looked poised to gain some real ground.
Investing in Amazon Rainforest Conservation: A Foreigner’s Perspective (commentary)
- Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has been trending upward since 2012, with a sharp acceleration since January 2019.
- Jonah Wittkamper, President of the Global Governance Philanthropy Network and co-founder of NEXUS, reviews the current situation and provides a perspective on how it might be possible to slow or reverse deforestation by investing in Amazon rainforest conservation.
- Wittkamper wrote this report to help guide investors and philanthropists on their learning journeys on the issue.
- This post is a commentary and does not necessarily reflect the views of Mongabay.
Vietnam’s new conservation plan prioritizes trees and people. Emissions? Not so much
- Under Vietnam’s proposed carbon for forest ecosystems services (C-PFES) program, the country’s 100 largest emitters, primarily cement manufacturers and coal-fired power plants, would pay forest communities and landowners to protect and expand forests.
- C-PFES, which appears to be the first national plan that puts a price on carbon and funnels those dollars specifically to forest conservation, is modeled on Vietnam’s existing PFES program, under which hundreds of hydropower plants, as well as some municipal water and ecotourism companies, have paid more than $500 million to thousands of rural households since 2011.
- Under C-PFES, cement manufacturers would pay $1.35 per ton of CO2, and coal plants would pay $2 per ton, well below the price called for by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of $40 to $80 per ton by the end of this year.
- Coal continues to provide nearly 40% of Vietnam’s energy generation. Under current plans, the country ranks third in the world, behind only China and India, in scheduled additional capacity.
Climate fix? ‘Fertilizing’ oceans with iron unlikely to sequester more carbon
- Since the 1980s, scientists have studied whether adding iron to the oceans might represent a relatively simple and inexpensive solution to climate change.
- The idea is that adding iron would encourage the growth of carbon-munching marine phytoplankton that would pull carbon out of the atmosphere on a global scale.
- But a new study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests that iron fertilization, as the process is called, is unlikely to work.
Success of Microsoft’s ‘moonshot’ climate pledge hinges on forest conservation
- One mechanism by which the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement incentivizes greenhouse gas reductions is via carbon offsets, payments that compensate nations, states and private landowners who agree to keep forests intact in order to preserve carbon storage capacity and biodiversity.
- But problems exist with forest carbon offset initiatives: corrupt landowners, lack of carbon accounting transparency, and low carbon pricing have caused wariness among investors, and failed to spur forest preservation.
- Now, in a landmark move, Microsoft has pledged to go “carbon negative” by 2030, and erase all the company’s greenhouse gas emissions back to its founding in 1975 by 2050. A big part of achieving that goal will come via the carbon storage provided by verified global forest conservation and reforestation projects around the globe.
- To achieve its goal, Microsoft has teamed with Pachama, a Silicon Valley startup, that seeks to accurately track forest carbon stocks in projects in the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon, the U.S. and elsewhere using groundbreaking advanced remote-sensing technology including LiDAR, artificial intelligence and satellite imaging.
2019: The year rainforests burned
- 2019 closed out a “lost decade” for the world’s tropical forests, with surging deforestation from Brazil to the Congo Basin, environmental policy roll-backs, assaults on environmental defenders, abandoned conservation commitments, and fires burning through rainforests on four continents.
- The following review covers some of the biggest rainforest storylines for the year.
Critiques of carbon credits aren’t asking the right question (commentary)
- Rather than dwelling too much on the conclusions that critiques of carbon credit schemes seem to put forward with such conviction, we should step back and consider, “Are they asking the right question to begin with?”
- Ultimately, these critiques are premised on the question of whether carbon credits have, to date, delivered all the benefits they’ve promised. Their answer: A decisive “no.” The problem is that such a question, and the response, will leave many readers with the impression that carbon credits are simply a bad option, and we’ll have to look elsewhere for solutions to climate change. Unfortunately, we no longer have such a luxury.
- So, instead, let’s ask this: “Is there any way to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement without protecting the world’s forests?” The answer here is another resounding “no,” but this one with much more serious implications.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Indonesia’s threat to exit Paris accord over palm oil seen as cynical ploy
- A top Indonesian minister says the country may consider pulling out of the Paris climate agreement in retaliation for a European policy to phase out palm oil from biofuels by 2030.
- Luhut Pandjaitan, the coordinating minister for maritime affairs, says Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of palm oil, can follow in the footsteps of the United States, which has declared its withdrawal from the climate pact, and Brazil, which is considering doing the same.
- The threat is the latest escalation in a diplomatic spat that has also seen Indonesia and Malaysia, the No. 2 palm oil producer, threaten retaliatory trade measures against the European Union.
- The EU says its policy is driven by growing consumer concerns about the sustainability of palm oil, which in Indonesia is often grown on plantations for which vast swaths of rainforest have had to be cleared.
World’s first indigenous carbon offset project suspended due to illegal mining
- In 2009, the Paiter-Suruí of Brazil became the first indigenous group in the world to design and implement a major forest conservation and carbon storage and offset project, a set of initiatives financed by selling carbon-offset credits..
- On Monday, the Paiter-Suruí announced the project is being suspended indefinitely due to an onslaught of diamond and gold miners and loggers which has caused a dramatic surge in deforestation within their 248,147 hectare (958 square mile) territory.
- In its early years, the project – designed to prevent at least five million tons of carbon emissions in 30 years – was incredibly successful. Illegal logging in the indigenous territory dropped to almost zero from 2009 to 2012, a period during which surrounding regions saw deforestation rates more than double.
- Analysts cite multiple reasons for the project suspension: the intrusion of external, powerful, self-interested actors; the lack of law enforcement in the indigenous territory; and the lack of state investment in indigenous education, health, and livelihood programs that could have alleviated individual economic and social pressures to secure short-term financial gain.
Scientists call on California governor to OK carbon credits from forest conservation
- A group of prominent scientists is calling on California governor Jerry Brown to incorporate tropical forest conservation into the state’s cap-and-trade regulation.
- California has been mulling the inclusion of tropical forests in its cap-and-trade regulation, which was authorized by the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB32), for a decade.
- If California were to adopt the tropical forest standard in its climate law, the move would signal to tropical forests nations that industrialized countries are willing to put money into forest conservation efforts as part of their climate change mitigation frameworks, say the scientists.
Record-high supply and demand on voluntary carbon markets in 2017: report
- According to a new report released by Ecosystem Marketplace, an initiative of the NGO Forest Trends, the supply of carbon credits on voluntary markets hit an all-time-high in 2017 of 62.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e), while 42.8-MtCO2e-worth of offsets were purchased and retired — also a record.
- The number of offsets that have been generated is generally considered to be the best way to estimate the environmental impact of voluntary carbon markets. According to the report: “Since 2005, projects have helped to reduce, sequester, or avoid over 437.1 MtCO2e. That is more than all of Australia’s energy-related emissions in 2016.”
- But Kelley Hamrick, lead author of the report, warns that much of the future growth of the world’s voluntary carbon markets depends on the degree to which compliance markets recognize offsets generated under voluntary systems.
Report finds projects in DRC ‘REDD+ laboratory’ fall short of development, conservation goals
- The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) released a new report that found that 20 REDD+ projects in a province in DRC aren’t set to address forest conservation and economic development — the primary goals of the strategy.
- The Paris Agreement explicitly mentions the role of REDD+ projects, which channel funds from wealthy countries to heavily forested ones, in keeping the global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius this century.
- RRI is asking REDD+ donors to pause funding of projects in DRC until coordinators develop a more participatory approach that includes communities and indigenous groups.
Carbon credit prices too low to protect forests from rubber, study finds
- Data indicate rubber plantations cover around 86,000 square kilometers – an area equivalent to around 67 percent of that of oil palm in 2014.
- As rubber plantations expand, scientists and conservationists worry it will come at the expense of rainforests and the wildlife they contain. They say forests in Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam are particularly at risk.
- A new study finds that carbon credits, which are used to discourage deforestation, are currently priced between $5 and $13 per metric ton of CO2. But in order to match the revenue generated by converting a forest to a rubber plantation, that number would need to be upped to between $30 and $51 per ton of CO2.
- The study concludes that as they stand now, carbon prices likely do not provide enough incentive to protect Southeast Asian forests from rubber expansion. It recommends raising carbon prices to make them more competitive with rubber revenue; its lead author further urges increasing development of synthetic alternatives and more effective rubber recycling.
Carbon pricing could save millions of hectares of tropical forest: new study
- Recently published research in the journal Environmental Research Letters found that setting a price of $20 per metric ton (about $18/short ton) of carbon dioxide could diminish deforestation by nearly 16 percent and the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere by nearly 25 percent.
- The pair of economists calculated that, as things currently stand, the world stands to lose an India-size chunk of tropical forest by 2050.
- In addition to carbon pricing, stricter policies to halt deforestation, such as those that helped Brazil cut its deforestation rate by 80 percent in the early 2000s, could save nearly 1 million square kilometers (386,000 square miles).
Counterintuitive: Global hydropower boom will add to climate change
- For many years new hydropower dams were assumed to be zero greenhouse gas emitters. Now with 847 large (more than 100 MW) and 2,853 smaller (more than 1 MW) hydropower projects currently planned or under construction around the world, a new global study has shown that dam reservoirs are major greenhouse gas emitters.
- The study looked at the carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) emitted from 267 reservoirs across six continents. Globally, the researchers estimate that reservoirs contribute 1.3 percent of human-made greenhouse gas emissions, comparable to those from rice paddy cultivation or biomass burning.
- Reservoir emissions are not currently counted within the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN IPCC) emissions assessments, but they should be, argue the researchers. In fact, countries are currently eligible under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to receive carbon credits for newly built dams.
- The study raises the question as to whether hydropower should continue to be counted as green power or be eligible for UN CDM carbon credits.
Is Brazil green washing hydropower? The case of the Teles Pires dam
- The Teles Pires Hydroelectric Company (builder and operator of Brazil’s Teles Pires dam in the Amazon Basin) was awarded a Green Certificate in the “Responsible Social and Environmental Management” category of the Chico Mendes Award, a prize named after the murdered Brazilian eco-hero.
- The company has won other green awards for its construction projects (including Amazon dams), and been awarded carbon credits by the United Nations.
- But critics ask how green the company that built the Tele Pires dam can be when their project wrecked indigenous and traditional communities, led to the dynamiting of an indigenous sacred site, did harm to biodiversity and fisheries, while also likely producing significant carbon emissions.
- The company claims it is not to blame, because it complied with all government regulations during the dam’s construction, and even went further to make the project sustainable. The Teles Pires dam raises key questions about “sustainability,” and who has the right to define it.
Going green with the aviation industry (commentary)
- The UN International Civil Aviation Organization intends to achieve “carbon neutral” growth from 2020, largely through carbon offsets.
- The authors argue in favor of the aviation industry’s plans, described as “an opportunity to massively scale up funding to protect the world’s forests.”
- This post is a commentary — the views expressed are those of the authors.
PHOTOS: Panama begins “test-flooding” dam over indigenous protests
- Panama’s Ngäbe and Buglé indigenous groups have long opposed the nearly complete Barro Blanco dam near their territory, alleging that the dam’s owner failed to consult them or conduct proper environmental and social impact assessments.
- The dam has spurred countless demonstrations, prompted outcry from national and international NGOs, and caused violent clashes between protestors and national security forces, including one in late August.
- The Panamanian government has allowed “test-flooding” of the nearly complete dam’s reservoir to proceed, despite the fact that an agreement between it and the indigenous authorities allowing the dam to go forward has yet to be finalized.
Dam opponents claim criminalization by Ecuadorian government
- Hidrotambo dam opponent Manuel Trujillo was recently exonerated from terrorism charges for allegedly destroying dam company property, but still faces more than two-dozen other legal cases related to his opposition to the dam.
- Human-rights groups claim the Ecuadorean government has criminalized Trujillo and other local leaders for organizing against the dam as part of a larger pattern in which the administration of Rafael Correa has gone after over 100 community leaders and activists for protesting development projects across the country.
- Activists have taken their case against the Hidrotambo dam to international courts.
PHOTOS: Panama revives stalled dam over strong indigenous opposition
- The 28-megawatt Barro Blanco dam in western Panama is nearly complete, but construction has been stalled since February due to opposition by local indigenous communities.
- A ceremony on Monday meant to mark a deal to complete the project between the Panamanian government and leaders of the indigenous Ngäbe community was disrupted by Ngäbe protesters, highlighting a strong division within the indigenous community.
- In a demonstration that erupted into violence, Ngäbe protesters temporarily shut down the ceremony.
- However, the dam will move forward under the signed agreement, which details new economic and oversight concessions for the communities and the ouster of the dam’s controversial owner.
10 conservation “fads”: how have they worked in Latin America?
- A 2013 editorial in the journal Conservation Biology described 10 conservation methods that emerged since the late 1970’s as fads, “approaches that are embraced enthusiastically and then abandoned.”
- The fads on the list were: the marketing of natural products from rain forests, biological diversity hotspots, integrated conservation and development projects, ecotourism, ecocertification, community-based conservation, payment for ecosystem or environmental services, REDD+, conservation concessions, and so-called integrated landscapes.
- Mongabay consulted seven conservation experts on how the 10 fads played out in Latin America, a region that is not only a hotbed of biodiversity but also of conservation activity.
Climate negotiators focus on carbon credits, underplay human rights
- The climate talks in Bonn Germany this month are looking at reinvigorating the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) that provides carbon credits to industrialized nations that invest in clean energy or efficient energy projects in developing countries.
- Over 7,000 CDM-financed projects in more than 100 nations were done since 2006. Critics say some large-scale industrial CDM projects, including dams and more efficient coal burning power plants, have violated the human rights of local and indigenous people.
- Those critics have recommended that the revitalized CDM include protections for local populations, but most UN negotiators in Bonn have showed little interest in including such safeguards, asserting that the great majority of CDM projects don’t violate human rights.
- CDM detractors also question the wisdom of a UN mechanism that allows construction of new coal-fired power plants, which will add to fossil fuel emissions for decades to come. No final decisions will be made in Bonn; that must wait until the COP22 meeting in November.
‘Maybe that’s why there’s so many fires’: Was a peat swamp illegitimately stripped of protected status in Indonesia?
- An oil palm company’s concession in Central Kalimantan is said to lie on a stretch of deep peat that was removed from Indonesia’s forestry moratorium based on an erroneous government survey.
- The concession is now full of fires, fueling the haze crisis that is contaminating the air in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
- A presidential unit on development oversight was investigating the concession last year until it was disbanded by the new president in December.
Damming Dissent: Community leaders behind bars in Guatemala after opposing hydro projects
Mayan women protest hydroelectric dam projects in Santa Cruz Barillas in western Guatemala on March 16, 2014. Local opposition to the construction of dams and other natural resource projects in the area has resulted in a government crackdown on activists. Photo credit: Luis Miranda Brugos / Alba Sud Fotografia. Thursdays are one of two visiting […]
$4.5 Billion Spent On Voluntary Carbon Offsets Over Past Decade: Report
The Te Apiti wind farm in New Zealand was granted tradeable carbon offset credits when it was built in 2003/2004. Wind energy projects were popular in voluntary carbon markets in 2014. Photo credit: Jondaar_1. Nearly one billion carbon offset credits were voluntarily purchased over the past decade, which netted conservation and clean energy projects almost […]
World Bank’s forest carbon program falls short on indigenous peoples’ rights, argues report
Local farmer in Indonesian New Guinea Countries poised to receive World Bank funds for achieving reductions in deforestation have insufficient safeguards for ensuring that local communities don’t lose out in the rush to score money from the forest carbon market, argues a new report published by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI). The report, released […]
REDD+ could fail without near-term financial support
Deforestation in Riau Province, Indonesia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. An ambitious plan to save the world’s tropical forests by valuing them for the carbon the store may fail to reduce deforestation unless governments and multilateral institutions significantly scale up financial commitments to the program, argues a new report published by the Global Canopy Programme, […]
Panel lays out best practices for REDD+ credits in California’s carbon market
A panel of scientific experts has released a final report outlining how carbon credits generated from tropical forest conservation could be used under California’s cap-and-trade system while minimizing risks to forest-dependent communities and wildlife. The report comes after the working group spent three years gathering data and comments at public hearings and workshops in the […]
Market for REDD+ carbon credits declines 8% in 2012
The market for carbon credits generated from projects that reduce deforestation and forest degradation — a climate change mitigation approach known as REDD+ — dipped eight percent in 2012 according to an annual assessment of the global voluntary carbon market. The report, published by Ecosystem Marketplace and Bloomberg New Energy Finance and slated to be […]
Debate heats up over California’s plan to reduce emissions via rainforest protection
As the public comment period for California’s cap-and-trade program draws to a close, an alliance of environmental activists have stepped up a heated campaign to keep carbon credits generated by forest conservation initiatives in tropical countries out of the scheme. These groups say that offsets generated under the so-called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation […]
A promising initiative to address deforestation in Brazil at the local level
Mongabay.com is partnering with the Skoll Foundation ahead of the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship to bring a series of perspectives that aim to answer the question: how do we feed the world and still address the drivers of deforestation? HOW DO WE FEED THE WORLD AND STILL ADDRESS THE DRIVERS OF DEFORESTATION? Soy, […]
World Bank REDD+ forest carbon fund gets $180m injection
Rainforest in Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler The World Bank’s forest carbon fund got a $180 million injection from Finland, Germany and Norway, reports Point Carbon. The bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), which is providing funding to develop and implement Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) projects in three dozen tropical countries, […]
Brazil sues to block unlicensed REDD deal between Irish company and indigenous group
Brazil’s Attorney General Office has filed a lawsuit against an Irish company and an indigenous group for unlicensed sales of carbon credits generated from an reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+) project, reports Reuters Point Carbon. The lawsuit aims to cancel a contract signed between Celestial Green Ventures LLC and the Awo Xo Hwara […]
As forest carbon credit market grows, REDD fails to keep pace, finds report
Will mega-dams destroy the Amazon?
150 new dams may destroy connectivity of the Amazon River to the Andes and drive deforestation. Construction of a canal for the Belo Monte Dam project, near Altamira taken by Daniel Beltrá for Greenpeace. Once completed, the Belo Monte Dam will be the third largest in the world. It will submerge up to 400,000 hectares […]
Carbon credit market for HFC-23 racked by fraud
An effort to decrease emissions of the super greenhouse gas HFC-23 has led to a largely-false carbon market that should be eliminated, says the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). HFC-23 is a byproduct of the refrigerant HCFC-22, which is currently being phased out under the Montreal Protocol for its ozone-depleting and greenhouse gas properties. However, the […]
Australia passes national carbon trading scheme for agriculture, forestry
Australia’s parliament passed the world’s first national carbon trading scheme for credits generated from farming and forestry, reports Reuters. The program, dubbed the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI), allows farmers to generate tradeable carbon offsets from projects that reduce emissions from agriculture and forestry, sectors that account for 23 percent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. CFI […]
Ahead of meeting, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) loses another supporter
The forest organization, FERN, has pulled its support from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), reports FSC-Watch. FERN has quit the increasingly troubled organization due to FSC pursuing carbon credits through forestry. The FSC loses FERN just weeks before its 6th General Assembly, in which FSC partners—including private corporations and some environmental groups—will meet to debate […]
Can ‘water footprinting’ help cut the 500 liters of H2O needed to produce a carton of OJ?
Carbon trading promotes good behavior by creating a standardized currency representing a verifiable environmental benefit. Payments for watershed services do the same for cutbacks in water pollution, albeit on a smaller scale. Now, the Nature Conservancy and the Coca-Cola Company are experimenting with a new method of “water footprinting” that could do the same for […]
First validated REDD forest carbon credits issued
A carbon conservation project in Kenya has become the first to win validation for REDD credits under the Voluntary Carbon Standard. The U.S.-based Wildlife Works said today the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) issued the first REDD-based Voluntary Carbon Units (VCUs) for its Kasigau Corridor REDD project, which protects over 500,000 acres of forest in Rukinga, […]
Jackpot: how international community could raise $141 billion for biodiversity
Leaders from around the world meeting in Nagoya, Japan for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to discuss solutions to stem the current mass extinction crisis may be in need of a little book: The Little Biodiversity Finance Book. While a recent report by The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) found that degradation of […]
Oil palm plantations on peatlands won’t get carbon credits under CDM
Plantations on peatlands will no longer be supported by the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a framework for industrialized countries to reduce their emissions via projects in developing countries, reports Wetlands International. The decision, which came last Friday during the executive board meeting, will bar biofuel plantations established on peatlands from earning carbon credits that could […]
Dapatkah Biochar Selamatkan Dunia?
Sebuah wawancara dengan Laurens Rademakers dari Biochar Fund. Biochar – penggunaan arang yang diproduksi dari membakar biomassa untuk pertanian – mungkin merupakan saru dari revolusi lingkungan dan sosial yang terpenting di abad ini. Praktek yang sepertinya sederhana ini – sebuah teknologi yang kembali ke ribuan tahun yang lalu – memiliki potensi untuk membantu mengurangi sebagian […]
Could biochar save the world?
An interview with Laurens Rademakers of Biochar Fund. Biochar—the agricultural application of charcoal produced from burning biomass—may be one of this century’s most important social and environmental revolutions. This seemingly humble practice—a technology that goes back thousands of years—has the potential to help mitigate a number of entrenched global problems: desperate hunger, lack of soil […]
Reforestation of rainforests sequesters more carbon than plantations
A new study in Ecological Management & Restoration has found that reforesting rainforest captures more carbon than monoculture plantation and even mixed species plantations. The research tested three projects in north-eastern Australia: a rainforest reforesting project using a variety of native trees, a mixed species plantation, and a monoculture plantation of conifers. “Compared to the […]
A total ban on primary forest logging needed to save the world, an interview with activist Glen Barry
Radical, controversial, ahead-of-his-time, brilliant, or extremist: call Dr. Glen Barry, the head of Ecological Internet, what you will, but there is no question that his environmental advocacy group has achieved major successes in the past years, even if many of these are below the radar of big conservation groups and mainstream media. “We tend to […]
Apakah kita di sedang berada di tepian penyelamatan hutan hujan?
Hingga saat ini, menyelamatkan hutan hujan seperti sebuah misi yang mustahil. Namun saat ini dunia telah mulai menerima ide bahwa solusi yang ditawarkan untuk membantu menghadapi perubahan iklim dapat memberikan tawaran cara baru dengan memunculkan nilai hutan tanpa menebanginya. CATATAN: Lihat Bigg REDDuntuk membaca konsep dengan lebih ringkas. Jauh di dalam Amazon Brazil, anggota suku […]
Where do forest carbon markets go from here?
Will Forest Carbon Markets Thrive, or Get Lost in the Woods? For thousands of years, we have been planting and growing trees without difficulty. It’s simple, and forest carbon business strategy can be, too. In fact, it’s core to what I’m trying to teach the MBA/MS students in my course at the Erb Institute this […]
James Hansen says Copenhagen approach “fundamentally wrong” would be better to “reassess”
James Hansen, one of the world’s foremost climatologists, told the Guardian today that he believes the Copenhagen talks are flawed to the point where failure of the talks may be the best way forward. “The approach that is being talked about is so fundamentally wrong that it would be better to reassess,” Hansen said. Hansen […]
Deforestation emissions should be shared between producer and consumer, argues study
Study focuses on beef and soybean production at the expense of the Amazon rainforest. Under the Kyoto Protocol the nation that produces carbon emission takes responsibility for them, but what about when the country is producing carbon-intensive goods for consumer demand beyond its borders? For example while China is now the world’s highest carbon emitter, […]
Will Ecuador’s plan to raise money for not drilling oil in the Amazon succeed?
Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park is full of wealth: it is one of the richest places on earth in terms of biodiversity; it is home to the indigenous Waorani people, as well as several uncontacted tribes; and the park’s forest and soil provides a massive carbon sink. However, Yasuni National Park also sits on wealth of […]
Logged forests support biodiversity after 15 years of rehabilitation, but not if turned into plantations
With the world facing global warming and a biodiversity crisis, a new study in Conservation Biology shows that within 15 years logged forests—considered by many to be ‘degraded’—can be managed in order to successfully fight both climate change and extinction. Studying regenerating forests in northeast Borneo, Dr. David Edwards from the University of Leeds, surveyed […]
Business and conservation groups team up to conserve and better manage US’s southern forests
A new project entitled Carbon Canopy brings together multiple stakeholders—from big business to conservation organizations to private landowners—in order to protect and better manage the United State’s southern forests. The program intends to employ the emerging US forest carbon market to pay private forest owners for conservation and restoration efforts while making certain that all […]
Private U.S. landowners may qualify for carbon payments under proposed legislation
U.S. Starts Small in Developing Domestic Forestry Have you ever found yourself wondering what your backyard is worth in carbon? It may seem like a silly question – especially when deforestation in rainforest nations with millions of acres of tropical forest are spewing more CO2 into the atmosphere than any single industry – but small-scale […]
Innovative reforestation project threatened by ‘regime change’ in Madagascar, an interview with Rainer Dolch
Third in a series of interviews with participants at the 2009 Association of Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) conference. In Madagascar the TAMS Program (Tetik’asa Mampody Savoka, meaning “the project to bring back the forest”) is under threat due to the new government’s unwillingness to provide funding. The current government, after gaining power in a […]
Are we on the brink of saving rainforests?
Until now saving rainforests seemed like an impossible mission. But the world is now warming to the idea that a proposed solution to help address climate change could offer a new way to unlock the value of forest without cutting it down. NOTE: See Bigg REDD for a condensed take on this concept. Deep in […]
Green groups, corporations call for forest conservation to counter global warming
A group of leading U.S. businesses and environmental groups today formed a coalition calling for the inclusion of forest conservation in domestic cap-and-trade legislation. The pact — signed by American Electric Power, Conservation International, Duke Energy, Environmental Defense Fund, El Paso Corporation, National Wildlife Federation, Marriott International, Mercy Corps, Natural Resources Defense Council, PG&E Corporation, […]
Voluntary carbon markets double in 2008
Voluntary carbon markets greatly expanded in both transaction volume and value in 2008, providing critical funds for projects aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new report from Ecosystem Marketplace and New Carbon Finance. Fortifying the Foundation: State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets 2009 — a survey of over 190 voluntary carbon credit […]
Congo biochar initiative will reduce poverty, protect forests, slow climate change
Congo biochar initiative wins critical funding to support poverty alleviation, climate change mitigation An initiative using soil carbon enrichment techniques to boost agricultural yields, alleviate poverty, and protect endangered forests in Central Africa was today selected as one of six projects to win funding under the Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF). The scientific committee of […]
Rainforest conservation gains in U.S. and U.N. climate proposals
A proposed mechanism for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) figures prominently in the draft climate bill released last month by Congressmen Henry Waxman and Ed Markey as well as a U.N. document posted last week following a climate meeting in Bonn, Germany. Deforestation is the source of roughly 20 percent of greenhouse gas […]
Over 90 percent of Americans support action on climate change in midst of financial crisis
A new poll released today by Yale and George Mason Universities finds that Americans overwhelmingly—92 percent—support action to reduce global warming. However opinions vary as to how much effort should be put into reducing CO2 emissions and what actions are appropriate. For example, 92 percent of American supported funding for renewable energy, 85 percent supported […]
Carbon market surges 84% in 2008
Guidelines on how to establish an avoided deforestation project
New guide offers insight on establishing projects for the emerging avoided deforestation or REDD market.
Biochar and its Role in Mitigating Climate Change
The growing concerns about climate change have brought biochar, a charcoal produced from biomass combustion, into limelight.
Clean Development Mechanism – An Important Tool to Reduce GHG Emissions
Clean Development Mechanism – An Important Tool to Reduce GHG Emissions Clean Development Mechanism – An Important Tool to Reduce GHG Emissions Salman Zafar October 26, 2008 The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), is a mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol for promoting technology transfer and investment from industrialized countries to the developing world for projects focussed […]
Prince Charles says hedge funds could save rainforests
Prince Charles renewed his call to protect rainforests for the services they provide humanity. Speaking Wednesday at a black-tie dinner in London, Charles compared the need to protect forests to fighting a war. "I often use the analogy of war because I fear we are engaged in a battle of survival. We must mobilize ourselves, […]
Old growth forests are giant carbon sinks, helping offset emissions
Old growth forests are carbon sinks for centuries, helping offset emissions Old growth forests are carbon sinks for centuries, helping offset emissions Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com September 11, 2008 Old growth forests are important carbon sinks that help global warming, reports a study published in the journal Nature. The results run counter to claims by […]
Palm oil producers in Indonesia reject moratorium on forest destruction
Palm oil producers in Indonesia reject moratorium on forest destruction Palm oil producers in Indonesia reject moratorium on forest destruction mongabay.com August 28, 2008 Palm oil companies operating in Indonesia have rejected a proposed moratorium on clearing forests and peatlands for oil palm plantations, reports the Jakarta Post. The Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association (GAPKI) […]
Biofuels 200 times more expensive than forest conservation for global warming mitigation
Biofuels up to 200 times more expensive than forest conservation for global warming mitigation Biofuels 200 times more expensive than forest conservation for global warming mitigation mongabay.com August 27, 2008 The British government should end subsidies for biofuels and instead use the funds to slow destruction of rainforests and tropical peatlands argues a new report […]
Markets could save rainforests: an interview with Andrew Mitchell
Markets may save rainforests An interview with Dr. Andrew Mitchell of the Global Canopy Program: Markets could save rainforests Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com August 18, 2008 Markets may soon value rainforests as living entities rather than for just the commodities produced when they are cut down, said a tropical forest researcher speaking in June at […]
Investors seek profit from conserving rainforest biodiversity
Investors seek profit from protecting rainforest biodiversity Private equity seek profit from rainforest wildlife conservation Rhett Butler, mongabay.com August 13, 2008 Scheme would generate investment returns while restoring rainforest and protecting wildlife An investment firm has launched the first tropical biodiversity credits scheme. New Forests, a Sydney, Australia-based company, has established the Malua Wildlife Habitat […]
Carbon tax will ease transition to sensible climate policy
Carbon tax will ease transition to sensible climate policy Don’t “Sell Short” the Earth: Carbon tax will ease transition to sensible climate policy Richard B. Rood and Gabriel Thoumi August 13, 2008 The management of carbon dioxide and the climate represent both an economic development challenge and the ecological problem of the next hundred years. […]
“Turtle carbon” could help protect rainforests and save endangered sea turtles
“Turtle carbon” could help protect rainforests and save endangered sea turtles “Turtle carbon” could help protect rainforests and save endangered sea turtles Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com August 12, 2008 Using carbon credits to promote rainforest conservation could help protect endangered sea turtles in some parts of the world, argues a carbon finance expert. Gabriel Thoumi, […]
Dell becomes carbon neutral by saving endangered lemurs
Dell becomes carbon neutral by saving endangered lemurs Dell becomes carbon neutral by saving endangered lemurs Rhett Butler, mongabay.com August 6, 2008 Dell, the world’s largest computer maker, announced it has become the first major technology company to achieve carbon neutrality. The Texas-based firm reached its goal through “an aggressive global energy-efficiency campaign and increasing […]
Private equity firm to sell biodiversity offsets from rainforest conservation
Private equity firm to sell biodiversity credits from rainforest conservation Private equity firm to sell biodiversity credits from rainforest conservation Rhett Butler, mongabay.com August 6, 2008 Scheme would generate investment returns while restoring rainforest and protecting wildlife An investment firm has launched the first tropical biodiversity credits scheme. New Forests, an Australia-based company, has established […]
14 countries win REDD funding to protect tropical forests
14 countries win first REDD funding from the World Bank to protect forests 14 countries win REDD funding to protect tropical forests mongabay.com July 24, 2008 Related: 1/3 of corals face extinction Fourteen countries have been selected by the World Bank to receive funds for conserving their tropical forests under an innovative carbon finance scheme. […]
Rainforest conservation could offset 500m tons of CO2 emissions at $2/ton
Rich nations could offset CO2 emissions at $2/ton via rainforest conservation Rainforest conservation could offset 500m tons of CO2 emissions at $2/ton mongabay.com July 24, 2008 Industrialized nations could collectively offset 500 million tons carbon of dioxide emissions at roughly $2 per ton by protecting tropical rainforests, according to estimates published in the online edition […]
New plan would pay tropical countries for saving forests, regardless of level of threat
New plan would pay tropical countries for protecting carbon sinks New plan would pay tropical countries for protecting terrestrial carbon, regardless of where it is stored mongabay.com July 24, 2008 [Corrected Aug 5, 2008] Deforestation and forest degradation account for around a fifth of global carbon emissions from human activities, but new policy measures are […]
Rainforest peoples form alliance to demand payments for forest carbon credits
Rainforest peoples form alliance to demand representation at climate talks Rainforest peoples form alliance to demand representation at climate talks mongabay.com April 7, 2008 Rainforest peoples from 11 nations have formed a coalition to demand a greater say in future climate negotiations. Meeting in Manaus, Brazil, in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, representatives of […]
Why Europe torpedoed the REDD forests-for-carbon credits initiative
Why Europe torpedoed the REDD forests-for carbon credits initiative Why Europe torpedoed the REDD forests-for-carbon credits initiative Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com March 5, 2008 Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) has been widely lauded as a mechanism that could fund forest conservation and poverty alleviation efforts while fighting climate change. At the December […]
Brazil seeks $1B/yr in donations to save the Amazon
Brazil seeks $1B/yr in donations to save the Amazon Brazil seeks $1B/yr in donations to save the Amazon mongabay.com February 23, 2008 Brazil will establish a donation-based fund to help finance conservation in the Amazon, according to Bloomberg. The announcement comes after deforestation rates spiked during the last five months of 2007. The Brazilian government […]
Is Guyana’s logging deal in its best interests?
Is Guyana’s logging deal in its best interests? Is Guyana’s logging deal in its best interests? Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com February 22, 2008 In January Guyana awarded U.S. timber firm Simon & Shock International a 400,000-hectare (988,400-acre) logging concession near the Brazilian border. Final approval hinges on the completion of an environmental impact survey and […]
The hidden value of Bali: Why saving the world’s rainforests is good for the climate and the US economy
The hidden value of Bali: Why saving the world’s rainforests is good for the climate and the US economy The hidden value of Bali: Why saving the world’s rainforests is good for the climate and the US economy Jeff Horowitz and Robert O’Sullivan,Avoided Deforestation Partners January 10, 2008 A few weeks ago, over 10,000 politicians, […]
Peatlands restoration is a cheap way to cut CO2 emissions
Peatlands restoration is a cheap way to cut CO2 emissions Peatlands restoration is a cheap way to cut CO2 emissions mongabay.com December 7, 2007 Rehabilitating damaged peatlands in Indonesia may be one of the most cost-effective ways to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, said an international NGO. Wetlands International found that peatlands restoration activities such […]
Is Amazon conservation worth more than clearing for cattle or soy?
After a steep drop in deforestation rates since 2004, widespread fires in the Brazilian Amazon (September and October 2007) suggest that forest clearing may increase this year. All told, since 2000 Brazil has lost more than 60,000 square miles (150,000 square kilometers) of rainforest — an area larger than the state of Georgia or the country of Bangladesh. Most […]
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