On 19 September 2019, the California Air Resources Board voted 7-4 to approve the Tropical Forest Standard. CARB is determined to convince us that this is not an approval of REDD offsets in California’s cap-and-trade scheme. In a presentation about the Tropical Forest Standard CARB staff point out that, “Endorsement of the Standard Does Not … Establish tropical forest offset credits for use in the California Cap-and-Trade Program”.
But that statement has a lot more to do with CARB’s enthusiasm for avoiding any discussion of offsets and the disastrous impact they will have on the climate crisis. That enthusiasm is shared by REDD proponents generally.
Offsets are counterproductive
Several organisations sent letters to CARB pointing out that offsets allow fossil fuel pollution to continue and therefore make the climate crisis worse.
Greenpeace USA, for example, wrote:
Offsets of any kind are counterproductive to the urgent action needed on climate change
The IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, released on October 8, 2018, establishes that urgent, dramatic and unprecedented changes to all aspects of our society is needed now, if the planet has any hope of avoiding the catastrophic impacts of climate change. This level of urgency is fundamentally noncompliant with the concept of carbon emission offsets of any kind, but especially to jurisdictional international forest offsets. The best scientists in the world are telling us in no uncertain terms that we need to dramatically curb greenhouse gas emissions AND immediately bring down deforestation rates around the world. We do not have the luxury to choose between the two. We cannot simply allow polluters to keep on polluting and hope that forests in a far away place will make that ok. The numbers just do not add up. They don’t add up for California and they don’t add up globally.
Here is CARB’s response (in full) to Greenpeace’s letter:
When we turn to “Master Response 2”, we find it carefully avoids discussing the impact of offsets on the climate crisis.
Instead, CARB focusses on the argument that offsets would allow continued air pollution in California and lists the range of legislation in place in California to address air quality: State Implementation Plans; Diesel Risk Reduction Plan; Sustainable Freight Action Plan; AB 32 Scoping Plan; AB 1807; AB 2588 Air Toxics “Hot Spots” Program; and SB 605 Short-Lived Climate Pollutant Plan.
The Tropical Forest Standard is all about offsets
In fact, CARB denies that the Tropical Forest Standard has anything to do with offsets. CARB’s “Master Response 2” is full of statements like this:
[T]he TFS is not proposing, nor would it result in, any new offset credits being eligible for use in the California Cap-and-Trade Program.
Compare this to the first sentence of the Tropical Forest Standard:
The purpose of the California Tropical Forest Standard is to establish robust criteria against which to assess jurisdictions seeking to link their sector-based crediting programs that reduce emissions from tropical deforestation with an emissions trading system (ETS), such as California’s Cap-and-Trade Program.
So the purpose of the Tropical Forest Standard is to be part of an offsetting scheme. It will therefore make the climate crisis worse.
Offsets make global warming worse
Before yesterday’s CARB decision to approve the Tropical Forest Standard, REDD-Monitor spoke to Larry Lohmann of The Corner House. Lohmann summed up the argument against offsets in two sentences:
“Even if offset theory were correct, the most offsets could do would be to have zero effect on climate. No one denies this. But because that outcome would be possible only on the assumption of a number of scientific falsehoods (e.g. counterfactual history = actual history, fossil CO2 = biotic CO2 and all the rest), it follows that offsets make global warming worse.”
Lohmann talked about how offset proponents avoid talking about offsets:
“Pro-offset tacticians just loooooove to change the subject to how very very terrible climate change is for all of us precisely because to do so eats up time that could be spent discussing the central fact, namely that offsets make climate change worse. Offset proponents need to keep diverting the discussion away from this fact, because as soon as that topic is raised, they have lost the debate. Indeed, in my experience, when the topic does come up, no offset proponent has ever even bothered trying to deny that offsets make climate change worse, because it is undeniable.
“Accordingly, the only recourse that offset proponents have when critics do succeed in getting that fact on the agenda is (a) to say that, OK, from now on offsets will not be offsets but will be “retired” before they can be used, and (b) to jive about building in “margins for error” into offset calculations that might bring the efficacy of offsets verifiably up to the level of being “climate-neutral” or better.
“(a) is of course unavailable in the California case, while (b) depends on the same specious science as offset theory itself. Meaning that if the discussion gets this far, it’s a lost cause for offset fans.
“In addition to the lost-cause, last-ditch tactics (a) and (b) that offset proponents try to fall back on when critics do succeed in getting the climatic effectiveness of offsets onto the agenda, there is also:
“(c) to say that, OK, yeah, you’re right, offsets do indeed make climate change worse, but never mind that, because offsets will be a part of a larger program that will compensate for that fact by introducing unrelated policies that maybe might have some positive effect on climate change. So let’s change the subject and talk about that larger program rather than asking why offsets are a part of it.”
Chris, I genuinely do not understand why the principle of offsets does not work. As a simplified illustration, say a carbon emitter (company, country) currently emits 1,000 units per year and tropical deforestation is 2000 units per year. Then current normal emissions are 1000 + 2000 = 3000 units per year. If the emitter pledges (better ‘is finally obliged’) to reduce its emissions to 400 units (say, representing 45% less than his 2005 level, i.e. ‘what is needed for 1.5 °C’), it can achieve this by continuing to emit 1,000 units at home while funding 600 units reduction through REDD+ (annually). The 400-cap means ‘global’ emissions have become: 1000 (home) + [2000 – 600] (in the tropics) = 2,400 units/yr. The emitter now on balance emits at 45% under his 2005 level, his contribution to 1.5 °C. This needs to be repeated every year.
The caveat is that these 600 credits can then not also be used for any Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of REDD-credit producing countries (high resolution remote sensing of annual forest emissions, by third parties, will prevent a country from doing that). And obviously, REDD+ offset credits should not be allowed to be used to increase a company’s current level (in our example, from current 1000 units to 1600). He has pledged / is obliged to emit at 400 units from now on (and to net zero units by 2050).
In fact, without offsetting through REDD+, the ~10% of global emissions from forested developing countries will continue, as they’d have no incentive to / financial compensation for reducing forest emissions which is (allegedly—Overman et al 2019, doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.02.010 ) developing their country.
Note, by the way, that this ‘10%’ from tropical forests implies that, even if deforestation would miraculously stop competely, this 10% is much less than the needed 45% reduction (of 2005 level) needed for 1.5C. A lot more than forest offsets will need to be done. (But since REDD+ credits still are neo-colonially low at $5 per ton, there’s quite a bit of interest…).
In addition, we’re apparently entering the Decade of Reforestation. Yet it does not sound very smart to try reforest (capturing ~1 tC/ha/yr, under increasingly erratic weather… ), against deforestation (emitting 150-300 tC/ha). Please don’t respond with a link but to the example. Thanks.
@Hm – Thanks for this. You’ve illustrated exactly what’s wrong with offsets.
To address the climate crisis we have to reduce emissions from fossil fuels. There is no way around this. Anything that distracts from the urgent need to reduce emissions from fossil fuels is part of the problem. Carbon trading is a dangerous distraction.
Your “carbon emitter” simply cannot continue to emit 1,000 units per year. Yet that’s precisely what carbon offsets allow to happen – in the example that you gave.
Your example, by the way, is exactly what the aviation industry is currently setting up with its carbon trading mechanism, CORSIA. The aviation industry is planning to continue increasing its emissions and claiming that offsets will somehow make that OK. CORSIA is cap-and-trade without the cap. It is an attempt to fool nature, as Prof. Kevin Anderson puts it.
If that wasn’t bad enough, there are the two scientific falsehoods that Larry Lohmann highlights in the post above:
1. counterfactual history = actual history: In order to set a baseline, the REDD project developers have to pretend that they know what would have happened in the absence of the REDD project. The concept of counterfactual baselines is inherently problematic – there is no possible way of knowing whether the baseline is accurate or not, and there are huge incentives to make up a baseline, in order to generate more carbon credits.
2. fossil CO2 = biotic CO2: The carbon stored below ground as fossil fuels can only interact with the atmosphere if corporations or governments dig it out and burn it. The carbon stored in forests is stored temporarily. Trees die. Forests burn. Cattle ranchers and loggers clear the forest. As the climate warms, the forests are more and more at risk of going up in smoke – particularly when the forests are degraded by logging and clearing leaving ever smaller patches of intact forest.
If the forest burns at some point in the future, or if it is cleared to make way for a soy plantation, the carbon is returned to the atmosphere.
@Chris Lang — thanks for your views. They seem, however, in my view largely wrong. Please see why below at the indented texts.
@Hm – Thanks for this. You’ve illustrated exactly what’s wrong with offsets.
To address the climate crisis we have to reduce emissions from fossil fuels. There is no way around this. Anything that distracts from the urgent need to reduce emissions from fossil fuels is part of the problem. Carbon trading is a dangerous distraction.
That is rubbish. You are throwing a viable solution under the bus (that can additionally help millions of forest-dependent people and biodiversity), because it cannot com-ple-te-ly solve the problem. You just have to point out (as I did in my first comment), that it can maximally reduce 10% of global emissions (when all tropical forest emissions stop), while a 45% reduction is needed by 2030 for the 1.5C target.
So, yes, in the absence of any other sufficient solutions, fossil fuel emissions ALSO have to come down.
Your “carbon emitter” simply cannot continue to emit 1,000 units per year. Yet that’s precisely what carbon offsets allow to happen – in the example that you gave.
Yes he can, provided he buys 600 REDD+ credits, so he emits 400 on balance, his contribution to the 1.5C target.
Your example, by the way, is exactly what the aviation industry is currently setting up with its carbon trading mechanism, CORSIA. The aviation industry is planning to continue increasing its emissions and claiming that offsets will somehow make that OK.
As long as his net emissions are 400, that possibility currently exists. The issue IS, does the world allow CORSIA to move in quick and lay a contractual claim to buying as many as possible REDD+ credits (while still colonially cheap at $5). In other words, will the world allow one industry to quickly buy its contribution to 1.5C for a rockbottom cheap (one can argue ‘neo-colonial) $5 carbon price (thereby consuming most of the maximally available ‘avoided forest emission’ credits)?
CORSIA is cap-and-trade without the cap. It is an attempt to fool nature, as Prof. Kevin Anderson puts it.
No it is not, see above.
If that wasn’t bad enough, there are the two scientific falsehoods that Larry Lohmann highlights in the post above:
1. counterfactual history = actual history: In order to set a baseline, the REDD project developers have to pretend that they know what would have happened in the absence of the REDD project. The concept of counterfactual baselines is inherently problematic – there is no possible way of knowing whether the baseline is accurate or not, and there are huge incentives to make up a baseline, in order to generate more carbon credits.
As I commented to you several times before (in emails and in a comment here), ‘projects’ are outdated small stepping stones to learn. REDD+ has moved / is moving on from project to national (or jurisdictional) level. National REDD+ does NOT have the baseline problem (and additionality, and leakage and permanence problems) of projects.
See for example Overman et al 2019. Please update your knowledge, so we (you) can finally stop going on about the early problems with REDD+.
2. fossil CO2 = biotic CO2: The carbon stored below ground as fossil fuels can only interact with the atmosphere if corporations or governments dig it out and burn it. The carbon stored in forests is stored temporarily.
No; they have been at these locations for millions of years.
Trees die. Forests burn. Cattle ranchers and loggers clear the forest.
All forest is/will be monitored by satellites, so that all emissions from deforestation and (yes) degradation are taken into account to calculate annually earned REDD+ credits to developing countries. Example: country historical emissions 10MtCO2. Last year 8M emissions? → country receives equivalent sum of 2M credits. Next year 9M emissions? (e.g. more burning, more cattle that year) → country gets (only) 1M credits.
As the climate warms, the forests are more and more at risk of going up in smoke – particularly when the forests are degraded by logging and clearing leaving ever smaller patches of intact forest.
If the forest burns at some point in the future, or if it is cleared to make way for a soy plantation, the carbon is returned to the atmosphere.
The latter view is naive (or purposefully misleading) rubbish. Please read Overman et al. 2019 and other work.
@Hm – you state that “National REDD+ does NOT have the baseline problem (and additionality, and leakage and permanence problems) of projects”
…but (sub-)national REDD+ has other baseline, leakage, additionality and non-permanence “problems”. Here’s one baseline “problem”:
You can find the full briefing from which this graph is taken, here.
Why do baselines matter? Because alleged emission reductions are calculated by comparing the volume of emissions in the baseline with the volume of emissions for the period of which “results-based” payments are requested or REDD+ offset credits are sold.
Take the example in the graph. It demonstrates how wide a range of emission “reductions” eligible for “results-based” payments or REDD+ offset credit sales can be manufactured through the careful choice of the baseline – also at (sub-)national level.
The baseline indicated by the red line in the graph is the one the Green Climate Fund accepted in early 2019 as the basis for “results-based” payments to the government of Brazil, for emission reductions allegedly reduced in 2014-2015. That baseline is hugely inflated as it includes the peak deforestation years in the Brazilian Amazon in the early 2000s. Even with this year’s massive rise in deforestation under the current government, that baseline would still yield “results-based” payments for reducing emissions from deforestation.
How that could not be considered a “problem”, I frankly do not understand – at least if reducing greenhouse gas emissions that are released into the atmosphere is the concern.
As the graph shows, a wide range of baselines are in use to determine “results-based” REDD+ payments to the government of Brazil. Curiously, none of the existing “results-based” REDD+ payment initiatives I am aware of chooses the 2009 commitment from the Brazilian government at the time of reducing deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon to a maximum of 5.586 km2 per year between 2014 and 2017, and reduce deforestation by 80 percent by 2020 (compared to the average deforestation from 1996-2005 – 19.625 km2).
What this shows is, among others, that while the volume of claimed reductions eligible for payments under a (sub-)national “results-based” REDD+ approach can vary widely based on the choice of a baseline, the release of actual emissions from deforestation into the atmosphere and the costs for measures undertaken to tackle deforestation are exactly the same in the different scenarios!
And as the example of Brazil shows, “results-based” REDD+ pays even when deforestation levels are rising (as they have been in Brazil for some years now, this years they just rose a lot faster), after a government abandons policies and enforcement measures that previously drove down deforestation.
@JK — Yes, if forest emissions have varied substantially per year in the recent past, a country will try and propose the most favourable period in its FREL submission to the UN (just as any other country or industry would try to do, as it represents money). I assume the UN’s Technical Assessment (of FRELs) applies certain criteria -agreed by UN-countries- to assure a fair (conform reality) baseline. Such a standardisation should eliminate ‘a wide range in baselines’ per country. Note: a baseline may come down over time (as measures are implemented and deforestation comes down), as per a ‘rolling/moving average’ .
What you appear to overlook in this graph is dat Brazil HAS massively reduced its ‘historically normal’ forest emissions of the past, since, say, 2005. Whatever the reason (I believe the Soy Moratorium, induced by a Greenpeace report), between 2005 and now, Brazil has avoided to emit a massive amount of CO2 (the ‘space’ between the historical baseline -the red line- and the ‘annual deforestation’ line). This would otherwise have been emitted, and have contributed to a higher current CO2-concentration in the atmosphere with associated worse weather.
Anything under the baseline in a given year is regarded as additional. And permanent, as the country DID emit less than normal that year. It is (a) permanent (fact it happened). Irrespective of next year’s result.
Therefore, your statement “Even with this year’s massive rise in deforestation under the current government, that baseline would still yield “results-based” payments for reducing emissions from deforestation” appears to be not ‘a problem’ but your ‘misinterpretation’ of reality. There is ‘a massive rise’ only, when (erroneously) compared to recent years with the lowest (achieved..) levels of deforestation. Yet ‘this year’s level’ is still way below the historical average (fairly set according to criteria agreed by UN-countries), hence this difference (baseline-actual) should be rewarded.
If ‘the world’ does not keep its promise to fully and timely pay for these past/present reductions, or if it tries to push through a much lower than the world price for the tropics (e.g. $5 tCO2), it is economically logical that a sovereign country may decide to up its landuse again (even though it may have political lobbying aspects). Is it Brazil or the world who is not complying?
As Overman et al. 2019 point out, a solution with large potential to drive forest governance change in sovereign developing countries lies in disclosing the net finances of commercial forest uses to a country’s citizens (i.e. the collective owners of forest-based resources). These ratios are typically extremely skewed towards the private commodity chain, with pittances to the country. This disclosure can induce strong domestic, economically driven, democratic pressure on government for improvements, which can strongly reduce deforestation and help mitigate the climate crisis (and indigenous people and biodiversity).
@Hm – Please read this post:
Total greenwash: Total CEO announces oil company will spend US$100 million a year on forest protection and reforestation
Alain Karsenty explains some of the problems with attempting to offset emissions from fossil fuels against carbon stored in forests and planted trees. This part is particularly relevant (but please read the full post):
@Chris Lang – I notice you are not responding to my / the points, but throw more paperwork at me like a law firm with no argument. Mr Karsenty’s ‘most relevant point’ is not that impressive but sounds more like panicky propaganda.
True, the overall capacity of the world’s forest blanket to absorb carbon may well be eroding by effects of global warming, but is that a reason for a full stop in offsets from forest? Talking about ‘it can only get worse’ [i.e. this global warming effect on forests], stopping with attempts to finance reducing DF and DG (with plausible amounts) sure will make it worse, as shown by his reference to Baccini et al. (2017) who found DF and DG emissions from global forest cover have surpassed what it absorbs, and our apparently getting dangerously close to the irreversible ‘tipping point’ in the Amazon (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/23/amazon-rainforest-close-to-irreversible-tipping-point) . This global warming effect will surely also negatively affect the performance of reforestation efforts, hence more reason to save what’s already absorbed (= forest), as I said in my first comment. As I also said, all DF and DG emissions (see e.g. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aac1fa ) per country (including from drought, fire, disease) will be annually monitored to assess a country’s performance against the baseline. A discussion will likely arise about how much of annual emissions were ‘not the country’s fault, but the fault of manmade global warming’.
All in all, my cue to exit.
@Hm – Alain Karsenty’s article is directly relevant to this discussion. His article in Telos (which is linked from the post on REDD-Monitor) asks the following question:
Spoiler alert: the answer is “NO!”
Here are my responses to your individual points:
1. I’m not throwing offsetting under the bus because it cannot completely solve the problem. I’m throwing offsetting under the bus because it makes the problem worse.
Offsetting emissions does not reduce emissions from fossil fuels. On the contrary it allows them to continue. To address the climate crisis we have to leave fossil fuels in the ground (McGlade and Ekins, 2015).
2. If we are to address the climate crisis we have to reduce emissions from burning fossil fuels – and leave fossil fuels in the ground. Offsetting doesn’t help, because it allows emissions from fossil fuels to continue.
3. The issue is whether the aviation industry is allowed to continue increasing its emissions from burning fossil fuels, and thus guaranteeing that the climate crisis will get worse. CORSIA allows the aviation sector to continue increasing its emissions.
4. CORSIA is actually cap and trade without the cap. You can’t just say “No it is not” – the amount of offsets needed each year increases as the aviation sector expands – see this graph produced by Environmental Defense Fund, with a 7.8 billion ton “emission gap”:
And yes, I know that EDF’s graph states that there is an “emissions cap at 2020 levels”, but it’s not a cap at all because it does not set a limit set on the amount of emissions to be released from aviation.
5. You have not attempted to answer the point about the counterfactual baseline. One of the reasons I asked you to read the post about Alain Karsenty’s article in Telos is that Karsenty explains the problem with baselines very clearly:
The problem of counterfactual baselines remains a problem whether we are talking about a REDD project, or National REDD+.
6. The carbon stored in forests is stored temporarily. Yes, in some parts of the world, there have been forests for millions of years. But as you acknowledge, the Amazon is getting dangerously close to a tipping point. Here’s what that means – from The Guardian article that you linked to:
“Releasing billions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere” – that’s what I mean by forests only storing carbon temporarily.
7. Trees die. Forests burn. Cattle ranchers and loggers clear the forest. This is happening today in the Amazon. I agree, it is being monitored by satellites and the emissions are being taken into account. But more than a decade of REDD has failed to stop the destruction.
You have a theoretical model based on your paper about what could happen in Guyana under a theoretical REDD scenario that doesn’t exist (Overman et al. 2019). How do you propose to convince Jair Bolsonaro to adopt your theoretical REDD scenario and stop the rampant deforestation in Brazil?
8. If the forest burns, the carbon is returned to the atmosphere. You describe this as “naive (or purposefully misleading) rubbish”. In your world, where does the carbon stored in forests go when the forest burns?