By Chris Lang Shell promises drivers in Denmark that they can become “CO2 neutral” when they buy carbon offsets with the petrol on sale in Shell’s petrol stations. Recently, three investigative journalists with the Danish newspaper Politiken spoke to a series of experts who point out that customers cannot trust Shell’s forest conservation promises. Morten…
Tag: Carbon Offsets

The return of the carbon cowboys: How NIHT Inc failed to get free, prior and informed consent for REDD in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea
By Chris Lang A US-based company called NIHT Inc has big REDD plans for the provinces of New Ireland and East New Britain in Papua New Guinea. So far, the NIHT Topaiyo REDD+ Project covering an area of 10,443 hectares of forest, has been registered by Verra. The project is in the south of the…

New Greenpeace report exposes VW’s REDD carbon offset sham. The Katingan REDD project faces problems of additionality, permanence, leakage, land conflicts, and (of course) an unverifiable, counterfactual baseline
By Chris Lang A new report by Greenpeace investigates VW’s “climate neutral” production claims for its new ID series of electric cars. Greenpeace concludes that VW has done too little to reduce its CO2 emissions, and that the carbon credits bought from the Katingan REDD project in Indonesia are neither additional nor permanent. VW’s claims…

Nature-based madness: A US$1.2 trillion carbon market by 2050?
By Chris Lang A new report by the UN’s Principles for Responsible Investment makes the claim that, “forest-related Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) could generate US$800 billion in annual revenues by 2050, worth US$1.2 trillion today in NPV [net present value] terms, surpassing the current market capitalisation of the oil & gas majors”.

Interview with Larry Lohmann, The Corner House: “Carbon markets do not need to be ‘fixed’. They need to be eliminated”
We have more than 20 years of evidence that carbon markets have failed to address the climate crisis. Yet carbon trading is booming. The oil industry plans to use natural climate solutions to greenwash its operations, and the aviation industry plans to use carbon offsets to allow its emissions to continue increasing.