2023-04-25 15:50:49
Article originally published on the Mídia Ninja website, on 4/20/2023
Verra, the world’s largest company that certifies carbon projects to mitigate global climate change, is in meltdown. the british newspaper The Guardianalong with other media vehicles, carried out an independent investigation that found that 90% of the credits validated by the company, related to projects that claim to reduce forest carbon emissions, do not have “additionality”, that is, they do not help to improve the situation of the climate.
There is no question regarding credits arising from projects to reduce emissions in the energy area, nor carbon sequestration via reforestation, but rather those that allege avoided deforestation, without evidence of additionality. The company suspended the certification of new projects that claim to reduce deforestation and started a review process for those that had already been approved before.
This review has raised eyebrows from consulting firms that provide technical support for designing and monitoring carbon projects. They have acted with great ease in the dispute for forested areas, involving their holders, including indigenous peoples and traditional communities, in exclusivity and long-term contracts, which guarantee them rights over part of the credits generated, to sell them to companies who want to offset their carbon emissions.
May-fee
The modus operandi of some consultancies is very similar to that of predatory fronts that exploit ores, wood and other natural resources from public forests. For example, they offer money in advance to needy communities, to be returned later, when the credits are sold. Thus, they reproduce the perverse logic of arranging, which generates dependency relationships. The money rewards the signing of contracts, which reserve 30% of the generated credits, even in the absence of any previous study or technical project, to be elaborated later.
There are contracts with communities that do not even have consultation protocols or management plans for their territories. There are clauses that guarantee companies the same 30% on the sale of other products from local biodiversity. These are harmful contracts, both for the climate and for the communities, with technical flaws and unfair relationships. Its proliferation contaminates the nascent carbon market in the country and competes, in a predatory way, with those who act seriously in it.
The Federal Public Ministry (MPF) is concerned about this wave of harmful contracts and must take measures. Its 6th Chamber, which promotes the defense of the rights of indigenous peoples and traditional communities, is expected to define parameters and limits for these contracts through a technical note. If they are not reviewed, they may be prosecuted.
In addition to the work of the MPF, it is desirable that the federal government establish a policy for forestry projects that prevents the degradation of the carbon market in the country and preserves the federal forests and the populations that live in them. Like the climate threat itself, which is global, the regulation of the carbon market has an international character and progresses slowly in the COPs, the conferences of the parties within the scope of the UN. These rules will define additionality criteria so that carbon credits can be issued and traded.
Other countries, which assumed reduction targets a long time ago, already have their own legislation, which sets goals and incentives for companies to reduce emissions. They can resort to the credit market to reduce costs and deadlines when meeting their goals. It is for this purpose – to mitigate climate change – that the carbon market exists. Projects without additionality delay this objective and do not deserve credit.
In Congress, several bills are being processed that intend to regulate the carbon market. But they are proposals that are detached from the Brazilian targets for reducing emissions, which do not define an internal regime of objectives for the private sector, and do not guarantee climate additionality. In addition, the Chamber has just approved a provisional measure, still subject to review by the Senate, which allows logging companies that exploit public forest concessions to develop carbon projects in these areas, which does not contribute to mitigating the climate situation either. Congress needs to understand that there is no point in creating an internal legal scam on a worldwide issue and that the interests of consultants and certifiers cannot ignore the demands of the climate emergency.
State action
In November 2021, there was an important breakthrough at a COP held in Glasgow, Scotland. Although partial, it was enough to heat up the carbon market and gave rise, in Brazil, to promising initiatives, but also to this more recent outbreak of harmful contracts and devoid of projects. There was, then, a denialist president and an opportunist government in international negotiations, which was only interested in the eventual access of large rural landowners to market resources.
With the arrival of Joe Biden to the presidency, the USA returned to the Paris Agreement and, with the United Kingdom and Norway, launched a fund called LEAF, to finance “jurisdictional” projects – national or subnational – of forest carbon. Faced with federal omission, governments of states in the Amazon filled this void and began to negotiate directly with donors and develop their own projects. Some states, despite rising deforestation, are already accessing pre-investment resources to formulate projects. But the wave of harmful contracts tramples this process and subtracts significant stocks of governability by the states.
LEAF’s criteria are much more reasonable than one-off and non-additional projects in the voluntary market, as they address state-scale emission reductions and condition the future issuance of carbon credits to effective and proven reductions. But the projects under construction by the states have accounted for the carbon stocks of federal lands, without having the legitimacy to manage them. The role of the states is more than desirable, but their projects must be compatible with each other and respect the essential role of the Union in the management of federal forests.
Lula government
With the election of Lula and the return of Marina Silva to the Ministry of the Environment, the Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Amazon (PPCDAM) – the main factor of emissions in Brazil – will be resumed. An updated version of it is now available for public consultation. The climate issue is placed as a priority by the president, who attended the COP held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, even before his inauguration.
However, the new government faced the confusing scenario of the carbon market. In order to take advantage of the opportunities in this sector, he will have to establish norms that define the ownership of forest stocks, the criteria that guarantee additionality for projects and that clean up the market, rejecting harmful contracts and non-additional projects.
The impact of the climate crisis is already affecting all regions of the country, with more severe droughts and floods causing death and destruction. Agricultural losses, lower generation of hydroelectric energy, crises in the supply of water in the cities will be increasing. If we are not able to take advantage of opportunities, we will only have the bitter taste of tragedy.
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