There are 233 posts tagged Carbon Credits (this is page 1 of 16).
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.
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”.
Last week, six Members of the European Parliament wrote to the California Air Resources Board urging the ARB to reject the proposed California Tropical Forest Standard. In November 2018, the ARB held a public meeting about the proposed Tropical Forest Standard. But the Board failed to reach a decision at that meeting.
A REDD-Monitor reader, let’s call him Harry, got in touch last week with a question:
Does anyone have any info on Source Escrow? They claim to be trading at 63 St Mary’s Axe London under a Companies House registered Co at Godington Hall, Bicester. If I phone their direct line I get a “switch board” and I am not able to connect to the director Mr Kivell. They are offering a good price for VCCs BUT require a deposit of £2000 in an “Escrow” account to lubricate the transaction. Thanks.
On 18 January 2019, Sami Raja was sentenced to eight years in prison at Southwark Crown Court. He was found guilty of conspiracy to defraud and money laundering. Four other men were sentenced in September 2018. Between January 2012 and August 2013, they miss-sold carbon credits to retail investors through two companies, Harman Royce Ltd and Kendrick Zale Ltd.
In September 2018, the California Air Resources Board released a draft California Tropical Forest Standard and a Draft Environmental Analysis. The California Air Resources Board invited comments on the Environmental Analysis by 5 pm on 29 October 2018.
Since May 2018, if you buy ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop in Wardour Street, London, you will also buy a small part of a carbon credit. For every scoop of ice cream, a penny goes to buying carbon credits from the Cordillera Azul National Park REDD project in Peru.
A company called “NLC Partners” is contacting people who were scammed into buying carbon credits as investments. NLC Partners claims to be able to sell the carbon credits. Needless to say, this has all the hallmarks of a recovery room scam.
When a company buys REDD carbon credits to offset its continued pollution, it relies on certification organisations such as Verra (previously called Verified Carbon Standard) and the Forest Stewardship Council to prove that the project is genuine, well managed, and really does result in reduced emissions. World Rainforest Movement recently visited the state of Mato Gross, Brazil to investigate the Florestal Santa Maria REDD project. WRM’s report reveals the problems with REDD, the problems with relying on this sort of certification, and the false solution of offsetting emissions from flying.
On 10 January 2017, UK police arrested Peter Singh Virdee, a British businessman, in Heathrow airport. Virdee faced extradition to Germany accused of fraud and €125 million in unpaid VAT on sales of carbon credits.
The Kariba REDD+ Project covers an area of 784,987 hectares in four districts of northwestern Zimbabwe. The project started in July 2011, and aims to generate almost 52 million carbon credits from reduced deforestation over its 30-year project life. The project is certified under the VCS and Climate Community and Biodiversity Standard systems.
In 2011, a Swiss company called World Markets AG bought five million “carbon benefit units”. They came from the April Salumei REDD project in Papua New Guinea. World Markets sold the “carbon benefit units” at a profit of over US$5 million.
A study published in October 2017 looks at how the demands of carbon forestry interact with the needs of community-based natural resource management. The study looks at one of the oldest village-based forest reserves in Tanzania, the Duru-Haitemba Villages Land Forest Reserve, in northern Tanzania. The Forest Reserve covers a total area of 9,045 hectares.
There is no way of avoiding the fact that flying is a disaster for the climate. For individuals, there is no faster way of frying the planet. Nevertheless, international aviation is not included in the 2015 Paris Agreement. The organisation responsible under the UN system, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has so far taken no meaningful action to reduce emissions from aviation.
In July 2017, a group of over 150 people who had been scammed into buying “carbon benefit units” got in touch with REDD-Monitor. Several London-based boiler room operations, including Industry RE, had sold them the “carbon benefit units”, supposedly as investments. Unfortunately they were worthless.
