{"id":1607278,"date":"2024-04-12T19:09:39","date_gmt":"2024-04-12T19:09:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grist.org\/?p=634870"},"modified":"2024-04-12T19:09:39","modified_gmt":"2024-04-12T19:09:39","slug":"a-climate-pledge-verifier-said-it-would-allow-more-carbon-offsets-its-staff-revolted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/04\/12\/a-climate-pledge-verifier-said-it-would-allow-more-carbon-offsets-its-staff-revolted\/","title":{"rendered":"A climate pledge verifier said it would allow more carbon offsets. Its staff revolted."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The world\u2019s most prominent verification program for corporate climate pledges is reportedly in turmoil<\/a> following its board of trustees\u2019 unilateral decision this week to allow carbon offsets to count toward companies\u2019 supply chain emissions reduction targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a letter to the board seen by Grist, dozens of staffers and program managers at the Science-Based Targets initiative, or SBTi, said the decision had caused \u201cgrave reputational damage\u201d and implied that it risked turning their organization into a \u201cgreenwashing platform.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The letter called for the resignation of SBTi CEO Luiz Amaral and board members who supported the change, as well as the withdrawal of the new policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe actions of the CEO and the board have resulted in significant harm to our organization’s reputation and viability,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The SBTi is a nonprofit that sets standards for corporate emissions reduction targets. It evaluates hundreds of companies’ targets each year and certifies those it deems legitimate. Companies, in turn, advertise the SBTi’s certification as evidence that their pledges are meaningful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among the staffers\u2019 main concerns is that access to carbon credits will incentivize companies to offset, rather than reduce, greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation and production of materials they buy and products they sell to consumers. Scientists say companies should do everything they can to limit these emissions, known as \u201cscope 3\u201d emissions, before trying to cancel them out with credits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Carbon credits are supposed to represent some amount of carbon emissions that are avoided or removed from the atmosphere \u2014 through projects like planting trees or installing wind turbines \u2014 but experts say it\u2019s questionable whether they actually work<\/a>. More than 90 percent of the rainforest-based credits offered by one popular organization were shown last year to be \u201cworthless<\/a>,\u201d largely because they promised to protect forests that were never under threat. (The issuer of those credits disputed the findings.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The SBTi staffers also said the board moved \u201cprematurely,\u201d without notifying or adequately consulting with its technical advisers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Technical Council was neither informed, consulted, nor given approval for such a significant decision,\u201d they wrote, calling this a \u201cclear and apparent breach\u201d of the SBTi\u2019s governance structures. At least one of the SBTi\u2019s technical advisory group members \u2014 Stephan Singer, a senior adviser at the nonprofit Climate Action Network \u2014 said he resigned from the SBTi over the issue. In his resignation letter, obtained by the Financial Times<\/a>, he called carbon credits \u201cscientifically, socially, and from a climate perspective a hoax.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Doreen Stabinsky, another SBTi adviser and a professor of global environmental politics at the College of the Atlantic in Maine, told Grist the move was a \u201ccorporate takeover of SBTi that will undermine any \u2018science-based\u2019 credibility they had.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n