Verra to replace its rainforest offsets scheme

Verra will phase out programme by mid-2025 after Guardian investigation found it was flawed

Greenfield P / The Guardian / 10 Mar 2023 / Biggest carbon credit certifier to replace its rainforest offsets scheme

More shade on Verra, the largest nature-based carbon credit certifier. Something to consider when developing blue carbon market projects. Article highlights:

• authors of Verra’s own rules for the carbon credits say they are flawed and open to exploitation, potentially allowing tens of millions of worthless carbon credits to be issued and sold to companies in the meantime.
• [Verra] said it would update its methodologies in the coming months and the new methodology would be available this year.
  
• the author of a widely used methodology, said it was “tempting to abuse the flexibility of these models” that Verra allows. 
• Prices and demand for Verra’s rainforest offsets dropped after the investigation (see Guardian article), following a longer-term fall in the market since it peaked in 2021.
• Verra has validated credits using disgraced methodologies and now they say they are going to change everything. Those credits are mostly hot air. What’s going to happen to the projects?

How companies use carbon offsetting to hit emissions goals

Charting a path toward strong blue carbon governance

The Jakarta Post / 5 Mar 2023 / Charting a path toward strong blue carbon governance

China explores the blue carbon market

A "carbon sink of a fishery" (related to algae aquaculture) has been aucctioned off in China. 

Here are a few highlights from a related articles:

Chinadaily / 28 Feb 2023 / Ningbo taps market for blue carbon credits

• The blue carbon credits are what the ecosystems generate based on the quantity of carbon they absorb and store. The credits are sold to buyers that want to offset their carbon emissions.
• The blue carbon credit market is relatively new in China. To date, only five blue carbon deals have been made in the country.
• The blue carbon credits sold on Tuesday are generated by three varieties of algae – kelp, seaweed and sea lettuce - at Xihu Port in Xiangshan. More than 20 enterprises and institutions from around the nation attended the auction, and Zhejiang Yiduan Precision Machinery Co Ltd, a machine manufacturer in Ningbo, won the bidding wars.

New China TV (YouTube video) / 2 Mar 2023 /  First "blue carbon" auction held in China's Ningbo

Ningbo.gov / 23 Feb 2023 / Ningbo's first blue carbon pilot project passed the expert acceptance

• the blue carbon storage and increment of the coastal wetland on the south bank of Hangzhou Bay are 696300 tons/year and 32700 tons/year respectively, and the carbon sink value of the coastal wetland is 1866100 yuan/year. The total carbon reserves of the intertidal zone on the south bank of Hangzhou Bay are 1.1488 million tons, including 63300 tons, 150700 tons, 13700 tons, 00400 tons and 797900 tons of reed, Spartina alterniflora, Scirpus mariqueter, Suaeda salsa and Guangtan respectively.

CGTN / 3 Mar 2023 / First 'blue carbon' auction held in China's Ningbo

About 2,340 tonnes of blue carbon was auctioned off in Ningbo, east China's Zhejiang Province on Tuesday, in an effort to help improve the marine environment in the area.

The item of the auction, the first of its kind in the country, is the annual total carbon sink of a fishery in Xiangshan County, with the starting price at 30 yuan (about $4.4) per tonne.

The winning bidder was Zhejiang Yiduan Precision Machinery Co., Ltd., which bought it at 248,000 yuan (about $35,900).

Blue carbon refers to carbon dioxide that is captured by marine activities and marine organisms, and stored in the marine ecosystem.

The auction helped facilitate the development of local blue carbon resources, which are expected to generate substantial economic and ecological benefits for the region.

Blue carbon trading lacks regulations

The National / March 2, 2023 / Carbon trading lacks regulations

THE Government does not have regulatory powers to control operations of carbon trading in the country, an official says. Climate Change Development Authority’s (CCDA) measurement, reporting and verification, and national communication division acting general manager Debra Sungi said the Government did not even have power to stop investors negotiating directly with locals.

Sungi said this was because the country did not have a carbon marketing policy framework to allow the Government to monitor, regulate and allow for carbon marketing to take place, whether it be in the forest or marine environment. “We need a regulatory framework to ensure everything that everyone is doing is working for a common goal,” she said. “There are a lot of activities, not only carbon marketing, but also in the conservation, preservation, agriculture, manufacturing and waste management in large companies, as well as academic research done by academia, all these need to be monitored and regulated.

“As we speak there is no national carbon policy framework to give the Government the powers to control or oversee those activities. “So with the policy framework, we hope to connect these activities, bring them under a common framework so we all work toward a common goal.” 

Sungi said carbon marketing was one of the reasons why the Government needed to have a policy frame work. But before addressing carbon marketing, the CCDA needs to address two key areas, implementation of an inventory, and a blue carbon framework to capture the marine ecosystem which also plays a vital role in controlling carbon emissions. Sungi said this during the Blue Carbon Framework for Papua New Guinea workshop yesterday in Port Moresby. 

The workshop was attended by key shareholders and development partners acting country manager for The Nature Conservancy, Ruth Konia, said blue carbon ecosystems such as mangroves, seagrass beds and saltmarshes constitute two to six per cent of the total area of tropical forests, however, their degradation accounts for 19 per cent of annual carbon emissions from global deforestation. She said TNC would work with the Government through the CCDA to develop the regulatory framework which could capture both the blue (marine) and red (forest) carbon markets.

Ensuring justice for communities in the blue carbon boom

An article on blue carbon social safeguards of the Vanga Blue Forest project, one of the project sites of the UNEP/GEF Blue Forests Project:

Economist Impact / 25 Jan 2023 / Ensuring justice for communities in the blue carbon boom

The demand for blue carbon credits is growing rapidly. Buyers from industry, government and civil society are increasingly seeking to offset their emissions by funding the restoration and protection of coastal ecosystems, as awareness grows of their power to sequester carbon and deliver many other benefits. The current supply of blue carbon credits falls well behind demand, so there is great incentive for the development of new projects. To date, carbon credits have only been issued from mangrove conservation and restoration, although work is under way to certify seagrass and saltmarsh ecosystems.

Socioecological system

Mangrove forests are a socioecological system. This means that where communities live alongside mangroves, people become intrinsically part of nature. Fisher-people benefit from the boost that mangroves provide to fish populations as a sheltered habitat for them to breed and grow. The forests’ biodiversity boosts tourism and supports resilient ecosystems and food chains on which many people depend. Communities living inland are protected by the natural sea wall that the forests create. The forests provide a source of timber that coastal populations rely on for cooking and building, and a source of other products including honey, fibres, dyes and medicines. But this reliance on mangrove products, particularly timber, is contributing to forest degradation and loss in areas with high levels of poverty. This means that the people who depend the most on mangrove forests must be put at the heart of conservation efforts.

Blue carbon projects are certified by one of several carbon standards. The core function of these standards is to ensure that the carbon being claimed by the projects is accurate and verifiable, but each framework also includes its own criteria for social, environmental and economic elements. For example, the Plan Vivo Foundation prioritises poverty alleviation and the inclusion and support of communities tackling the climate crisis through its projects.

Extensive research has ascertained what makes community-based conservation effective and socially just. This involves not just consulting those involved but ensuring that they play an active role in the governance, management and decision-making of projects and their interventions.

• Community-based conservation involves not just consulting those involved but ensuring that they play an active role in the governance, management and decision-making of projects and their interventions.

Community engagement

Effective community-based management takes time, resources, patience and an open-ended, iterative approach to developing and managing projects. It must capture the diversity and complexity of what defines a “community” and be adaptive to changing social, economic and environmental contexts. Community engagement and involvement is not a tick-box exercise confined to the project-development phase; it is a principle that must be embedded throughout the project lifespan with the understanding that community needs, expectations and ambitions can change as the project progresses.
Community engagement

Blue carbon projects present unique challenges for community engagement and involvement. For example, the certification process is onerous and demands scientific, technical, ecological and political knowledge and capabilities. These are not always skills that community groups hold—at least, not in the way demanded by carbon standards—meaning that “outside” help is almost always needed to develop and sometimes manage a project. While a partnership approach is not unusual in conservation, the reliance on partners in a carbon project may give rise to conflicts over project ownership and sharing the benefits of carbon revenue.

To develop a socially just and effective blue carbon project, the challenge of meaningfully involving communities must be addressed. However, the increasing demand for blue carbon credits creates an incentive for rapid project development to generate large volumes of credits. This incentive is at odds with the time and resources required to adequately engage and involve people in project development and management.

Quality over quantity

This conflict between the quantity and quality of projects and their credits must be understood by governments, funders and buyers of carbon credits. Funders and national blue carbon strategies must prioritise local people’s needs and inclusion alongside carbon benefit, understanding that without the former, the latter is unachievable or unsustainable. This means addressing the root causes of degradation—in many cases, such as in East Africa, the need for timber as a result of poverty. It also means undertaking meaningful and comprehensive engagement with communities and maintaining their involvement throughout the project lifespan through iterative engagement and adaptation. Community-led projects such as the Mikoko Pamoja and Vanga Blue Forest projects in Kenya have demonstrated how projects can deliver community benefits and justice alongside carbon benefit, and their example has been followed elsewhere in Africa and further afield.

With the current boom in demand and funding for blue carbon, there is great potential for climate, environmental and social benefits to be realised. It is essential, however, that this “blue carbon fever” doesn’t allow quantity to take priority over quality.

Mwanarusi Mwafrica will be speaking at the 2023 World Ocean Summit’s session on “Developing blue-nature-based solutions to address global climate and biodiversity challenges” on February 28th at 12.00 GMT, in Lisbon. The sessions will discuss how credible blue-nature-based solutions are being developed, why it is important to develop coastal ecosystems to protect biodiversity as well as for carbon offsetting, and how this is happening.

About the authors

Robyn Shilland is director of ACES, a Scotland-based charity supporting community-led blue carbon projects, including the Mikoko Pamoja and Vanga Blue Forest projects. Her work involves co-ordinating the certification of projects to the Plan Vivo Standard and working with communities to develop and manage effective blue carbon projects. She has 10 years’ experience of working in the carbon market and conducting research into carbon-offsetting ethics and social justice in carbon projects.

Mwanarusi Mwafrica is the project co-ordinator for Vanga Blue Forest. She is responsible for the everyday management of the project and co-ordinating community engagement and governance. She has three years’ experience working with the Vanga community on sustainable mangrove conservation and protection in Kenya.

The Carbon Con

The world’s biggest companies, from Netflix to Ben & Jerry’s, are pouring billions into an offsetting industry whose climate claims appear increasingly at odds with reality

source-material.org / 18 January 2023 / The Carbon Con

Addional information supporting the January The Guardian Verra carbon fraud article.

Ethical carbon offsetting has a role to play in tackling the climate crisis

A response to Monbiot's 26 January article Carbon offsetting is not warding off environmental collapse – it’s accelerating it -

The Guardian / 31 Jan 2022 / Ethical carbon offsetting has a role to play in tackling the climate crisis

Prof Mark Huxham and Mukti Kumar Mitchell on concerns about the viability of carbon offsets in response to an article by George Monbiot. Plus Barbara Foster and MSR Seshu on the climate implications of flights

George Monbiot makes important points about the role of nature-based solutions (Carbon offsetting is not warding off environmental collapse – it’s accelerating it, 26 January). We need to preserve our natural forests, mangroves, sea grasses and peatlands to slow current heating levels, and we need to restore and expand them to deal with our legacy carbon. But in suggesting that all offsetting is simply greenwashing, he does a disservice to the hundreds of community-based projects that are working to improve lives and conserve natural carbon sinks.

The Association for Coastal Ecosystem Services helps people in Kenya protect their mangrove forests and use money from the sale of carbon credits for water, education and health. The forests, the money and the projects belong to them. We do not take money from fossil-fuel companies, but rather from individuals and small corporations that are committed to reducing emissions but still want to compensate for those that they cannot avoid.

This is ethical offsetting and it has an important role to play. Please don’t confuse this with the corporate greenwashing of big oil. 

Prof Mark Huxham
Convener, Association for Coastal Ecosystem Services

In pointing out the misuse of carbon offsetting by multinationals, George Monbiot only shows one side of the coin. In my 25 years of working to save CO₂, I avoided offsets for two reasons: failed offsets, such as forests dying, and future offsets, eg claiming that a flight to New York today is offset by planting trees that take 50 years to absorb the same amount of CO₂. But we need a way to fund the drawdown of excess CO₂ in the atmosphere (estimated at up to a trillion tonnes). To do this, carbon sequestration activities need a rapid injection of cash, which offsetting can provide. Certification has dealt with offset failures and there are now genuine time-bound offsets available that only count CO₂ absorbed in, say, the current year.

Whether they pay to replace wood stoves with solar stoves in Africa or to finance British farmers to adopt low-carbon practices, offsets are essential to reach net zero. The question is not whether offsets are good or bad, but which ones are good. 

Mukti Kumar Mitchell
Director, Carbon Savvy

For some time I have felt that there was something amiss about flying off to some distant land for a holiday and salving one’s conscience by paying a carbon offsetting charge. Thank you, George Monbiot, for making it clear why the climate catastrophe will not be solved this way. Planting a few more trees with one hand while destroying forests or drilling for more oil with the other does not pass muster. Those of us of mature years who have created the problem should be first to try to limit our carbon footprints. 

Barbara Foster
Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire

Your report (26 January) that at least 100,000 ghost flights could be flown across Europe this winter makes for highly disturbing reading. The consequential impact on the climate through the flights’ release of an estimated 2.1m tonnes of greenhouse gases is mind-boggling. All this being imposed just to force airlines to retain their slots at airports is irresponsible and inhuman. Whatever is happening to the commitments made by European nations at Cop26? 

MSR Seshu
Secunderabad, India

 

Carbon offsetting is not warding off environmental collapse – it’s accelerating it

 

Concerns over the recent dramatic increase in nature-based carbon offsetting -

George Monbiot / The Guardain / 26 Jan 2022 / Carbon offsetting is not warding off environmental collapse – it’s accelerating it

Wealthy companies are using the facade of ‘nature-based solutions’ to enact a great carbon land grab

There is nothing that cannot be corrupted, nothing good that cannot be transformed into something bad. And there is no clearer example than the great climate land grab.

We now know that it’s not enough to leave fossil fuels in the ground and decarbonise our economies. We’ve left it too late. To prevent no more than 1.5C of heating, we also need to draw down some of the carbon already in the atmosphere.

By far the most effective means are “nature-based solutions”: using the restoration of living systems such as forests, salt marshes, peat bogs and the seafloor to extract carbon dioxide from the air and lock it up, mostly in trees or waterlogged soil and mud. Three years ago, a small group of us launched the Natural Climate Solutions campaign to draw attention to the vast potential for stalling climate breakdown and a sixth mass extinction through the mass revival of ecosystems.

While it is hard to see either climate or ecological catastrophe being prevented without such large-scale rewilding, we warned that it should not be used as a substitute for decarbonising economic life, or to allow corporations to offset greenhouse gases that shouldn’t be produced in the first place. We found ourselves having to shed a large number of partner organisations because of their deals with offset companies.

But our warnings, and those of many others, went unheeded. Something that should be a great force for good has turned into a corporate gold rush, trading in carbon credits. A carbon credit represents one tonne of greenhouse gases, deemed to have been avoided or removed from the atmosphere. Over the past few months, the market for these credits has boomed.

There are two legitimate uses of nature-based solutions: removing historic carbon from the air, and counteracting a small residue of unavoidable emissions once we have decarbonised the rest of the economy. Instead, they are being widely used as an alternative for effective action. Rather than committing to leave fossil fuels in the ground, oil and gas firms continue to prospect for new reserves while claiming that the credits they buy have turned them “carbon neutral”.

For example, Shell’s Drive Carbon Neutral scheme tells businesses that by buying fuel on its loyalty card, the “unavoidable” emissions from their fleets of vehicles can be offset “through Shell’s global portfolio of nature-based solutions projects”. It assures customers that, by joining the programme, “you don’t even have to change the way you work”. Similar claims by Shell in the Netherlands were struck down by the country’s advertising watchdog.

The French company Total is hoping to develop new oilfields in the Republic of the Congo and off the coast of Suriname. It has sought to justify these projects with nature-based solutions: in Suriname by providing money to the government for protecting existing forests, and in Congo by planting an area of savannah with fast-growing trees.

This project is extremely controversial. If the drilling goes ahead it will help to break open a region of extremely rich forests and wetlands that sits on top of the biggest peat deposit in the tropics, potentially threatening a huge natural carbon store. The rare savannah habitat the company wants to convert into plantations to produce timber and biomass has scarcely been explored by ecologists. It’s likely to harbour a far greater range of life than the exotic trees the oil company wants to plant. It is also likely to belong to local people though their customary rights, which are unrecognised in Congolese law, were not mentioned in Total’s press release about the deal. In other words, the offset project, far from compensating for the damage caused by oil drilling, could compound it.

These are not the only issues. In all such cases, an extremely stable bank of carbon – the fossil fuels buried below geological strata – is being swapped for less secure stores: habitats on the Earth’s surface. Last year, forests being used as corporate offsets were incinerated by the wildfires raging across North America. It’s also hard in some cases to prove that offset money has made a real difference. For example, two of Shell’s projects have been criticised on the grounds that the forests they claim to defend may not be at risk. These schemes often rely on untestable counterfactuals: what would have happened if this money had not been spent?

While there are international standards for how carbon should be counted, there is no accounting for the moral hazard of carbon offsets: the false assurance that persuades us we need not change the way we live. There is no accounting for the way companies use these projects to justify business as usual. There is no accounting for how they use this greenwashing to persuade governments not to regulate them. Nature-based solutions should help us to avoid systemic environmental collapse. Instead, they are helping to accelerate it.

And then there’s a small issue of land. There is simply not enough land on Earth to soak up corporate greenhouse gas emissions. Oxfam estimates that the land required to meet carbon removal plans by businesses could amount to five times the size of India – more than the entire area of farmland on the planet. And much of it rightfully belongs to indigenous and other local people, who in many cases have not given their consent. This process has a name: carbon colonialism.

During the Cop26 climate summit in November last year, the government of the Malaysian state of Sabah announced a carbon credits deal with foreign corporations covering an astonishing 2m hectares (5m acres) of forest. Indigenous people say they knew nothing about it.

In Scotland, Shell is spending £5m extending the Glengarry forest. While Scotland needs more trees, it also needs a much better distribution of land. As big corporations and financiers pile into this market, land prices are rising so fast that local people, some of whom would like to run their own rewilding and reforestation projects, are being shut out.

A better strategy would be to spend money on strengthening the land rights of indigenous people, who tend to be the most effective guardians of ecosystems and the carbon they contain. Where communities don’t own land, they should be funded to buy it back and restore its missing habitats. But none of these projects should be counted against the fossil fuels we should leave in the ground.

Yes, we need to restore life on Earth. Yes, we need to draw down as much carbon as we can. But we cannot let this crucial tool be turned against us.