At the end of May 2013, several articles appeared about the approval of the Rimba Raya REDD project in Indonesia. “World’s largest REDD project finally approved in Indonesia”, and “Perseverance Pays Off For World’s Largest REDD Project”, were two of the headlines. A few days later, these headlines were edited to reflect the fact that…
Author: Chris Lang
Australia to replace carbon tax with emissions trading scheme
Australia’s carbon tax started in July 2012. The carbon price was supposed to be fixed until July 2015, at which point it would be replaced by an emissions trading scheme. This week, prime minister Kevin Rudd announced that emissions trading will start a year earlier than planned.
In 2012, the market for REDD carbon credits shrank and the price fell
Ecosystem Marketplace recently released its State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets 2013. During 2012, the market for voluntary carbon credits grew by 4% in volume, reaching 101 million tonnes of carbon offsets. But the market value decreased by 11% as the average price of voluntary carbon credits fell from US$6.2 in 2011, to US$5.9 in…
Corruption in Tanzania: President’s men took over, Norwegian aid money disappeared
In February 2013, Siri Gedde-Dahl, a journalist with Norway’s Aftenposten newspaper, investigated corruption in a REDD project in Tanzania funded by Norway. In a recent Aftenposten article, Gedde-Dahl reports that Wildlife Conservation Society of Tanzania, the Tanzanian NGO that was running the project, has collapsed.
Clean development mechanism: zombie projects, zero emissions reductions and almost worthless carbon credits
Last week, the clean development mechanism registered its 7,000th project. At a first glance, the statistics look impressive. Over a 10 year period, the CDM has issued 1.3 billion carbon credits, added 110,000 Mega Watts of renewable energy and seen US$215 billion invested in low carbon projects in the Global South.