The experience since the big Rio confab in 1992 is that carbon credits are so gameable that over and above their obvious failing: plant a tree and it eventually either burns or dies and decays, releasing the carbon—that over and above that fact is the fact that if there is a bucko to be made the pirates will invade.*
From the Wall Street Journal, September 20:
Software provider will compete with various trading platforms and plans to sell to its existing network of clients
Business-software provider Salesforce Inc. is launching a marketplace for carbon credits that it says will tackle transparency and quality issues in the fast-growing field.....MUCH MORE
The San Francisco-based company said Tuesday that its latest platform, called Net Zero Marketplace, is set to go online in October with close to 90 projects selling carbon credits that support programs such as forestry, soil health and renewable-energy in the developing world, among others. Salesforce brought together some of the biggest environmental project developers, including Climate Impact Partners and South Pole, and ratings agencies Calyx and Sylvera. The platform will be available first in the U.S. and in other countries later.
Voluntary carbon credits, also known as carbon offsets, each claim to equal one metric ton of carbon dioxide avoided or removed from the atmosphere. If a company buys enough credits to offset its emissions in a given year, it can say that it is carbon neutral. For-profit groups and nonprofits frequently sell such credits with the promise to plant trees or protect forests from logging.
Salesforce’s move into the carbon-credit business comes as demand from companies is surging alongside increasingly ambitious climate goals, such as reaching net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions before 2050. Consultancy McKinsey & Co. estimates that the voluntary carbon market will reach $50 billion by 2030.
The company says it will offer a more transparent marketplace for both buyers and sellers of carbon credits. It will provide reference materials detailing how credits can support a climate plan, based on Salesforce’s own experience of buying credits since 2017. Still, carbon analysts say concerns over projects that fail to accomplish what was advertised and a lack of clarity on pricing, project availability and ratings run rampant in the largely unregulated market.
“The immaturity of the carbon marketplace is what is hindering action,” said Patrick Flynn, Salesforce’s global head of sustainability. “There’s not a lot of trust, there’s not a lot of transparency. Buyers are afraid of making a mistake. Suppliers can’t connect with enough buyers.”....
*If interested see the Chinese scamming Kyoto with HFC-23:
For some reason I can't get HFC-23 out of my head. It's a refrigerant chemical that China used to rake in billions from the Kyoto treaty signatories (read German hausfraus).
HFC-23 is 12,000 times as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2.
They would build plants to make the stuff (as a byproduct of HFC-22) and then offer to shut them down for Kyoto cash. Based on the estimated lifetime production of the plants. Best guess is they netted $6 billion after construction costs.
After a while (years) the carbon credit people caught on and then we saw China's reaction:
And the truly delightful "The Bored Whore of Kyoto" which begins:
Nothing drove home Russia's place in the growing pollution-trading business better than what one carbon finance guy told me at a conference last month sponsored by Gazprom and the World Bank. We were on drink number three or four at the reception when he dropped the green pretense and came clean. "I don't know if climate change is caused by burning coal or sun flares or what," said the Moscow-based carbon cowboy. "And I don't really give a shit. Russia is the most energy inefficient country around, and carbon is the most volatile market ever. There's a lot of opportunity to make money."
