Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A report by the Stockholm environment institute claims that a UN carbon credit scheme “significantly undermined” efforts to tackle global warming.
According to the BBC;
The vast majority of carbon credits generated by Russia and Ukraine did not represent cuts in emissions, according to a new study.
The authors say that offsets created under a UN scheme “significantly undermined” efforts to tackle climate change.
The credits may have increased emissions by 600 million tonnes.
In some projects, chemicals known to warm the climate were created and then destroyed to claim cash.
As a result of political horse trading at UN negotiations on climate change, countries like Russia and the Ukraine were allowed to create carbon credits from activities like curbing coal waste fires, or restricting gas emissions from petroleum production.
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34042115
Click here to read the Stockholm Environment Institute press release
This is not the first time carbon credit suppliers have been accused of gaming the system. The BBC article cites a story from 2010, in which the EU strongly criticised Chinese carbon credit suppliers.
Chinese chemical companies’ use of offsets has a ‘total lack of environmental integrity’, says Connie Hedegaard
Damian Carrington in Brussels
The European commission is planning to clamp down on a £1.6bn carbon trading scam. The use of carbon permits from industrial gas projects in China could be banned because of their “total lack of environmental integrity”, the climate change commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, has told the Guardian.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/oct/26/eu-ban-carbon-permits
The BBC article reports that Russia strongly rejects claims that many Eastern projects broke the rules;
Michael Yulkin, from Russia’s Environmental Investment Centre rejected the idea that many of these Eastern projects broke the rules.
“That’s just not true,” he told BBC News.
“All the projects have been validated and the additionality has been proved – it was all following the rules and if the rules allowed them to be in, so you have them in.”
Why are carbon markets so susceptible to fraud and sharp trading? I have a theory. In a normal market, fraud damages the financial interests of at least some of the participants, so there is a strong incentive to report fraud to the authorities, to punish fraudsters, and to recover stolen assets.
But in a carbon market, most market participants actually benefit from fraud. The sellers of carbon credits benefit when they sell fraudulent credits, because they are making money for nothing. The buyers of carbon credits benefit from a market flooded with fraudulent carbon credits, because the oversupply caused by fraudulent credits helps to keep prices down. Corrupt officials benefit financially, when they receive bribes to ignore the fraud. The only people who are disadvantaged by carbon fraud, are investors who tried to follow the rules, to produce “genuine” carbon credits, and politicians and activists who naively expected the carbon market to deliver emissions reductions.
“What’s in it for you
Turn Marginal Assets into Profit Generators
Carbon farming is usually best suited to turn less profitable farming assets into profit generating assets allowing the best land to keep in production and reducing farm debt.”
http://countrycarbon.com.au/?gclid=CN-EttS7xMcCFUgJvAodSIICVQ
“Our services
Carbon Carbon are carbon credit stock agents developing projects and working to deliver carbon farming income to landholders and the Australian agribusiness sector.”
That’s ‘Country Carbon’ to you folks but we’re all a bit too rushed around here turning less profitable assets into more profitable assets to be too bothered with getting the website editing in order and besides those pesky Russkis have got the jump on us.
Not to forget the importance of cow farts in generating more profitable ass-ets
http://countrycarbon.com.au/methodologies/feeding-nitrates-to-beef-cattle/
Elmer Gantry would turn ‘green’ with envy at the ‘carbon’ scam. ☺
I pay the Canadian Olympic team for exercise credits, but I haven’t lost any weight.
Why is that?
Highly interesting ! Thanks a lot ! Plus there are lots and lots more to be told/revealed on this topic…
The Swedish blogg “Klimatupplysningen” (~ ‘Climate Enlightenment’ ) has today (Aug 25) a thread that gives you some more and detailed info about “SEI” and much more. Language is, of course, Swedish, but I think interested people (the thread is highly readable/interesting !) can easily translate the core text via Google translate. Some of the text is also in English. Link is:
http://www.klimatupplysningen.se/2015/08/25/resan-till-paris-del-1-den-stora-omstallningen/
Brgds from Sweden
//TJ
Eric, I can vouch for your theory. In the early 2000s, I was a technical consultant to greenhouse gas aggregator firms from Europe and Canada seeking to generate GHG credits under the Kyoto Protocol “Clean Development Mechanism.” I did projects in Latin America and Asia, focused upon agriculture (making methane out of cow and pig poop).
It was great consulting work, but also very frustrating, as I learned that the business-people in these firms were technical idiots who hoped to game the system for their own financial advantages. What comes around goes around, all of these idiots were slaughtered when the market for Certified Emission Reduction credits dropped like a hammer.
One of my sponsors lost over $1 billion US in paper value when the end of the game came!! As Anthony might say….”Shaka, when the walls fell!”
I wonder if Lew et al get emails from Russian widows or Kremlin employees who need to get n million carbon credits out of the country? Might be worth a punt.
“The vast majority of carbon credits generated by Russia and Ukraine did not represent cuts in emissions, according to a new study.”
They needed a study to work that out?
Seriously?
Strewth!
“or restricting gas emissions from petroleum production.”
If the petroleum production is going to happen anyway, then any effort to restrict gas emissions from it should be considered a plus.