Greenwash alert: Saudi Arabia’s Regional Voluntary Carbon Market Company recently sold 2.2 million carbon credits to Big Polluters
Red flag: one of the world's biggest climate vandals sets up a carbon market.
On 23 October 2022, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, announced the launch of the Regional Voluntary Carbon Market Company. The RVCMC was previously announced a year earlier in September 2021.
The Public Investment Fund owns 80% of the Regional Voluntary Carbon Market Company, and Saudi Tadawul Group Holding Company owns the remaining 20%. The Saudi Tadawul Group was incorporated in 2021 and has four subsidiaries: the Saudi Exchange, the Securities Clearing Center Company, the Securities Depository Center Company, and Wamid, a financial technology company.
The Public Investment Fund owns 60% of Saudi Tadawul Group. Needless to say, the vast majority of the money in the Public Investment Fund came from profits from Saudi Arabia’s oil and gas.
October 2022: 1.4 million carbon credits auctioned
Announcing the launch of the RVCMC, the Public Investment Fund stated that the “company’s announcement will help facilitate the efforts of the world’s largest- carbon credit auction on the 25th of October at the 6th Edition of FII”.
FII is the Future Investment Initiative Conference. And at the 2022 Future Investment Initiative Conference, 1.4 million carbon credits were auctioned.
According to the Public Investment Fund,
The auction offered high-quality CORSIA-compliant and Verra-registered carbon credits to support businesses operating in a diverse range of industries in the region as they play their part in the global transition to net zero, ensuring that carbon credit purchases go above and beyond meaningful emission reductions in value chains.
The auction will, according to the Public Investment Fund, “support Saudi Arabia’s efforts to achieve net zero by 2060”.
But as we have seen time and time again, Verra-registered carbon credits are absolutely not a guarantee of “meaningful emission reductions”, let alone going “above and beyond meaningful emission reductions”. Whatever that means.
In total 15 companies took part in the auction. No prizes for guessing which companies bought the most carbon credits. Three Big Polluters (obviously):
Aramco, a Saudi Arabian state-owned oil and gas corporation;
Olayan Financing Company, a company with deep roots in Saudi Arabia’s oil and gas; and
Saudi Arabian Mining Company.
June 2023: 2.2 million carbon credits auctioned
On 14 June 2023, the Regional Voluntary Carbon Market Company beat its own world record with a sale of more than 2.2 million carbon credits at an auction in Nairobi, Kenya.
This time around, the Big Polluters that bought the most carbon credits were:
Aramco;
Saudi Electricity Company; and
ENOWA, a renewable energy company, which is a subsidiary of NEOM. NEOM is funded to the tune of US$500 billion by the Public Investment Fund.
Saudi Airlines also bought carbon credits. But why ENOWA, a renewable energy company, would want to buy carbon credits is far from clear.
The companies buying the carbon credits handed over US$6.27 for each carbon credit. The carbon credits were generated from a “basket of credits” from 18 projects “representing a mix of CO₂ avoidance and removal, including projects such as improved clean cookstoves and renewable energy projects”.
The Regional Voluntary Carbon Market Company’s press release does not state exactly which projects the credits came from, but apparently 75% came from countries across the Middle East, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Regional Voluntary Carbon Market Company also signed two MoUs, with Eveready East Africa Plc and Carbon Vista Nigeria LP, “in order to generate high-quality, impactful carbon projects in Kenya, Nigeria and beyond”.
At the auction in Nairobi, Riham ElGizy, Chief Executive Officer of RVCMC, said that,
“Our ambition is to be one of the largest voluntary carbon markets in the world by 2030, one that offsets hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon per year and contributes to the global impact on net zero goals. This is real climate impact we are talking about. We are trailblazers. We are setting apart from the competition. We secured the first ever Fatwa issued for carbon credits to be traded as an enabling commodity for Islamic financing. We are opening up a whole new pool of custom to our market. Nobody else is doing this in our industry, nobody else. But the work we have done so far is only the start.”
And Rania Nashar, Chairperson of the RVCMC said,
“We are working with you to build one of the world’s largest carbon credit markets. We are determined to press ahead with this mission as quickly and authoritatively as we can. And beyond KSA [the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] we all share one atmosphere. The RVCMC can play an important role in scaling climate action benefiting us all, which is why we are hear in Nairobi today.”
Greenwashing on a colossal scale
On Twitter, the RVCMC explains that only 10% of carbon credits pass its selection process because “Each carbon credits needs to meet a strict set of criteria”.
These criteria apparently consist only of the following:
CORISA-eligible [sic]
Verra listed
Vintage of 2018+
That’s a pretty low bar.
But let’s face it, any criteria for carbon credits will be a bar that the largest polluters in the world, and their enablers in the standards setting organisations like Verra, can waltz over without any danger of tripping up.
Carbon credits are an imaginary commodity with one overriding purpose: to allow Big Polluters to continue business as usual for as long as possible.
Carbon credits are the diametric opposite of meaningful action to address the climate crisis.
Obviously, this is greenwashing on a colossal scale. Saudi Arabia, through its massive oil and gas industry, is one of the biggest contributors to the climate crisis. And its targets under the UNFCCC Paris Agreement are “highly insufficient”, according to Climate Action Tracker’s rating.
Commenting on the auction in Nairobi, Carbon Market Watch’s Gilles Dufrasne told Al-Monitor that,
“It’s commonplace for energy companies to try to market themselves as greener than they actually are. And the carbon market offers a great way of doing that.
“It’s a way of saying . . . we’re participating in this green economy, and we are playing our part in financing climate action without actually addressing the elephant in the room, which is the continued exploration and extraction of fossil fuels.”
This is great news - hundreds of millions of tons of carbon removed - in about 6 months I will be able to see the results of this most worthy goal starting to show in the Keeling Curve. Nicht var? How do I make a sarcastic-face emoji? This is a bigger rip-off than when they made Aramco public and sold shares to millions of suckers.