#pachama

Our analysis of nearly 100 million carbon credits found that only a fraction of them resulted in real emissions reductions. It raises questions for the organisations that many of the world’s biggest companies, and the consumers who buy their products, rely on to set the standard for effective carbon offsetting—in particular the biggest of them, Verra.

“The implications of this analysis are huge,” said Barbara Haya, head of the Carbon Trading Project at the University of California, Berkeley. “Companies are making false claims and then they’re convincing customers that they can fly guilt-free or buy carbon-neutral products when they aren’t in any way carbon-neutral.”

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SourceMaterial and its partners reviewed data shared by scientists who carried out two major studies on Verra forest projects, together accounting for 95 million carbon credits—theoretically enough to balance the annual emissions from 25 coal-fired power plants or burning 220 million barrels of oil.

Our analysis suggests that only 5.5 million of those credits, or 6 per cent of the total, were real emission reductions. Of the 29 projects, only eight reduced any emissions at all.

Both studies, carried out by the same international group of scientists, estimated the real amount of deforestation prevented by the projects to calculate how many credits they should have received.

SourceMaterial then used Verra’s database to compare this with the number of credits each project actually received in the same timeframe. The disparity is stark: 94 per cent of those credits are likely to be worthless, the calculations showed.

Gusano pollito.

Los Angeles Native/Quechua/Chicana activist Julia “Pachamama” Fernández on the the U.S. coup against Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, Evo Morales of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS): 

“I was just told by a woman in Bolivia that the Juana Azurduy program has been suspended by the de facto government. And, it’s a stipend program that’s designed to provide health and nutrition benefits, basically for pregnant mothers and young children in underserved sectors of the population — so that’s been suspended. 

“And it’s clear that most of the most vulnerable communities which predominantly comprise our Indigenous peoples in the rural areas are the ones being most affected. That, along with the expulsion of our Cuban medical doctors, has basically created panic within the sectors. 

“We have elders, we have children, pregnant women and men, which includes those protectors of democracy who were assaulted and shot during those peaceful marches in Senkata and Sacaba, who still have not received medical attention, so they are the most vulnerable. For me that spells out G-E-N-O-C-I-D-E. For me that’s what’s happening.

“Basically, the Indigenous movement is being forced to rebuild amid all the chaos happening in Bolivia. Right now, there’s like a series of intimidations, of persecution and unlawful detention of innocent MAS supporters, false accusations against grassroots journalists and against MAS political leaders — even, you know, false allegations against the presidential candidate Luis Arce Catacora.

“The focus–in spite of what they’re facing–is to really stay together against all odds. And the Bolivian Indigenous peoples have fought and won the gas and water wars in the past. The May elections may not be fair, but international volunteers will arrive to be witnesses of the upcoming historical events happening in Bolivia. And as for the Bolivian people, their courage and their strength will pull them through.”