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Amazon Rainforest
For the past 35 years, the Shepherd Express has worked with Project Censored to help get these important, yet seldom reported, stories out to the American people. We have great respect for the researchers and reporters at Project Censored and are privileged to be able to work with them.
For the past week, we began posting the Top 10 censored stories in countdown order, starting with 10 and working up to #1. We will continue Project Censored this week, starting with Story #5.
5. Certified Rainforest Carbon Offsets Mostly ‘Worthless’
“The forest carbon offsets approved by the world’s leading certifier and used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations are largely worthless and could make global heating worse, according to a new investigation,” The Guardian reported on Jan. 23, as part of joint nine-month reporting project with SourceMaterial and Die Zeit.
“The analysis raises questions over the credits bought by a number of internationally renowned companies—some of them have labeled their products ‘carbon neutral’ or have told their consumers they can fly, buy new clothes or eat certain foods without making the climate crisis worse.
“About 90 percent of rainforest carbon offsets certified by Verra, the world’s largest offset certifier, do not reflect real reductions in emissions,” Project Censored summed up. Verra, “has issued more than one billion metric tons worth of carbon offsets, certifies three-fourths of all voluntary carbon offsets.” While “Verra claimed to have certified 94.9 million credits” the actual benefits “amounted to a much more modest 5.5 million credits.”
This was based on an analysis of “the only three scientific studies to use robust, scientifically sound methods to assess the impact of carbon offsets on deforestation,” Project Censored explained. “The journalists also consulted with indigenous communities, industry insiders and scientists.”
“The studies used different methods and time periods, looked at different ranges of projects, and the researchers said no modeling approach is ever perfect,” The Guardian wrote. “However, the data showed broad agreement on the lack of effectiveness of the projects compared with the Verra-approved predictions.”
Specifically, “The investigation of 29 Verra rainforest offset projects found that 21 had no climate benefit, seven had significantly less climate benefit than claimed (by margins of 52 to 98 percent less benefit than claimed), while one project yielded 80 percent more climate benefit than claimed. Overall, the study concluded that 94 percent of the credits approved by these projects were ‘worthless’ and never should have been approved.”
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Fixing a Broken Market?
“Another study conducted by a team of scientists at the University of Cambridge found that in 32 of the 40 forest offset projects investigated, the claims concerning forest protection and emission reductions were overstated by an average of 400 percent,” Project Censored reported. “Despite claims that these 32 projects together protected an area of rainforest the size of Italy, they only protected an area the size of Venice.”
While Verra criticized the studies’ methods and conclusions, an outside expert, Oxford ecoscience professor Yadvinder Singh Malhi, had two PhD students check for errors, and they found none. “I wish it were otherwise, but this report is pretty compelling,” he told The Guardian.
“Rainforest protection credits are the most common type on the market at the moment. And it’s exploding, so these findings really matter,” said Barbara Haya, director of the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project, who’s researched carbon credits for 20 years. “But these problems are not just limited to this credit type. These problems exist with nearly every kind of credit,” she told The Guardian. “We need an alternative process. The offset market is broken.”
“There is simply nobody in the market who has a genuine interest to say when something goes wrong,” Lambert Schneider, a researcher at the Öko-Institut in Berlin told SourceMaterial. “The investigations by the Guardian, Die Zeit, and SourceMaterial appear to have made a difference. In March 2023, Verra announced that it would phase out its flawed rainforest offset program by mid-2025,” Project Censored reported. But they could only find one brief mention of the joint investigation in major U.S. newspapers, a Chicago Tribune op-ed.
