Fraudulence in the carbon offsetting market is a growing concern. The Environmental Defense Fund suggests that up to 85% of offsets may be ineffective or fraudulent. Many projects overstate their carbon reduction, misleading buyers and creating a false sense of progress. Without accountability, carbon offsetting risks becoming a tool for greenwashing rather than real environmental change.
Fraud having been rife in the artificially created market superfluous to actually controlling climate since the 1st offsets and credits were offered. The fact that supposedly financially sophisticated elites continue to invest in these schemes nearly 20 years into this scam suggests they are more interested in green virtue signaling or magical wish fulfillment than a sober assessment of the actual functioning of the market and those entities operating in it, buying and selling offsets, and guaranteeing.
A string of academic studies and media investigations have concluded that many credits do not represent genuine emissions savings. One investigation concluded that over 90% of carbon credits issued for rainforest protection by the largest carbon credit certification body “had no benefit to the climate.” 2 published in 2023 found that credits for forest-based projects in North America, South America, Africa and Asia may in fact increase net emissions. That same year, uncertainty over the validity of credits caused the voluntary carbon market to collapse; the market’s value dropped by more than 60%. Given the current situation, “it’s nearly impossible to be certain that what you’re buying is high integrity,” says Stephen Lezak, a researcher at the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project at the University of California.
A similar problem has been detailed in a critical study of the expensive carbon credits generated by EV manufacturers. Every EV sold gets 6.67 mpg in credits for every single mpg of actual fuel economy improvement or its equivalent above the CAFE average. In addition, EV manufacturers are given additional extra credits under the EPA’s banking system for meeting its bogus and legally unjustified GHG emission standards. EV makers are allowed to sell these credits to makers of internal-combustion vehicles to improve their fleetwide CAFE numbers and offset their CO2 emissions. The amount of credit assigned to EVs for greenhouse gas reduction compared to traditional gas- and diesel-powered vehicles was simply made up, not produced after a careful life-cycle comparison of the different types, much less models, of vehicles. This is a scam, created and run by governments(1). Vehicle prices are inflating, caused by the corrupt biden regime’s EV carbon credit program.
Sound science says climate change does not pose an existential threat(2). It is not a real, clear, and present danger. There is no crisis! As such, the whole carbon offset/carbon credit market was never necessary or environmentally or economically justified.
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Supplemental Info:
https://justthenews.com/politi....cs-policy/energy/exp
