At its meeting in Davos last month, the World Economic Forum launched a new initiative to plant one trillion trees. Even Donald Trump is on board.
Interview with Diego Saez-Gil, CEO of Pachama about his company’s work for Microsoft: “We can’t disclose details of the partnership”
In January 2020, Microsoft announced that it “will be carbon negative by 2030”. The news was repeated widely and largely uncritically, although Greenpeace’s Elizabeth Jardim pointed out to BBC News that, “a gaping hole remains unaddressed: Microsoft’s expanding efforts to help fossil fuel companies drill more oil and gas with machine-learning and other AI technologies”.
REDD in the news: 10-16 February 2020
REDD-Monitor’s round-up of the week’s news on forests, the climate crisis, REDD, and natural climate solutions. For regular updates, follow @reddmonitor on Twitter.
UNDP investigation confirms that WWF-funded ecoguards beat up indigenous peoples in the Republic of Congo
“In the past we knew no boundaries in the forest. A Baka knew that the forest belonged to him.” This is part of a statement from an indigenous Baka man explaining how the Baka live in and with the forest in the north of the Republic of Congo.
German prosecutors seek arrest of Peter Virdee (AKA “Batman”) for €125 million carbon credit VAT fraud
Prosecutors in Frankfurt am Main announced this week that they are seeking the arrest of a 46-year-old British businessman charged with running a criminal gang that pocketed €125 million via a carbon credit VAT carousel fraud.