“If this is all about protecting the rainforest, then, I don’t know, something has gone wrong here. Something has gone very, very badly wrong.”
REDD-Monitor’s round-up of the week’s news on forests, climate change, and REDD. For regular updates, follow @reddmonitor on Twitter.
Recently, ProPublica published a well researched article on the pitfalls of generating carbon credits from forest conservation: “An (Even More) Inconvenient Truth: Why Carbon Credits For Forest Preservation May Be Worse Than Nothing”. The article caused quite a stir and generated a series of responses from REDD proponents.
On 7 June 2019, James Moore was found guilty of wire fraud and conspiracy for his role in the Bar Works investment scam. Moore was convicted after a one-week trial before the U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman.
“The era of carbon offsets is drawing to a close. Buying carbon credits in exchange for a clean conscience while you carry on flying, buying diesel cars and powering your home with fossil fuels is no longer acceptable or widely accepted.”
REDD-Monitor’s round-up of the week’s news on forests, climate change, and REDD. For regular updates, follow @reddmonitor on Twitter.
Kaziranga National Park in the north east of India has a shoot on sight policy, used against poachers and villagers found inside the park. Violent evictions of communities who lived in the national park have taken place, and park rangers are accused of serious human rights violations. Kaziranga was the subject of a recent documentary by the Dutch documentary TV series, Zembla.
REDD-Monitor’s round-up of the week’s news on forests, climate change, and REDD. For regular updates, follow @reddmonitor on Twitter.
A £7 million carbon credit fraud trial has collapsed at Southwark Crown Court. In his closing observations, Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith described the prosecution’s expert witness, Andrew Ager, as “not an expert of a suitable calibre”.
On 23 May 2019, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York put out a press release about the case against Renwick Haddow and others involved in the Bar Works scam. The press release includes the following statement:
REDD-Monitor’s round-up of the week’s news on forests, climate change, and REDD. For regular updates, follow @reddmonitor on Twitter.
Earlier this week, REDD-Monitor received an email from Brian Smith (name changed). Brian explained that about seven years ago he’d been scammed into buying carbon credits as an investment. Recently, Brian received an email from John Miles at a company called Verified Carbon Solutions. Miles said he was acting as a broker for Kentisbury Trust, a company looking to buy five million carbon credits.
Recently, British journalist George Monbiot launched a Natural Climate Solutions campaign. In the spirit of encouraging debate about the dangers of offsetting emissions from fossil fuels against the carbon temporarily stored in ecosystems, I wrote a post asking the question, “Is the new Natural Climate Solutions campaign a distraction from the need to leave fossil fuels in the ground?”
REDD-Monitor’s round-up of the week’s news on forests, climate change, and REDD. For regular updates, follow @reddmonitor on Twitter.
Gurpreet Singh Rai, or Gurps to his friends, describes himself as someone who was a “prominent figure of the Carbon Market”. He claims to have created history in 2011, when he became “the first person to successfully facilitate a commodity trade using a virtual currency”.
