Companies and individuals rushing to go green have been spending millions on “carbon credit” projects that yield few if any environmental benefits.
A Financial Times investigation has uncovered widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organisations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place.
Others are meanwhile making big profits from carbon trading for very small expenditure and in some cases for clean-ups that they would have made anyway.
Trading in “carbon offsets” is arguably the worst opening for scams and fraud that has been invented in this century. There is not even a good definition of what a “carbon offset” is and those who sell them can virtually make up the value of the product that they sell. How, after all, do you check on the existence of a carbon offset? Some carbon offsets are simply promises to plant some trees at some time in the future. Meanwhile, you can fly your Learjet or Gulfstream and claim that your so-called “carbon footprint” is zero.
Not since the emperor’s new clothes has a scam of this magnitude been perpetrated.
The FT investigation found:
■ Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.
■ Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.
■ Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.
■ A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.
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