More than 100 NGOs urge US special envoy John Podesta to oppose carbon markets and offsets under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement

“Carbon markets have failed to reduce emissions for over 20 years.”

On 20 March 2024, more than 100 environmental, human rights, and frontline organisations wrote to Joe Biden’s new special envoy for climate, John Podesta. The letter argues against carbon markets under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and for policies that will meaningfully address the climate crisis.

Four organisations were the original signatories on the letter: Indigenous Environmental Network; Food & Water Watch; Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy; and National Family Farm Coalition.

“Carbon markets have failed to reduce emissions”

In a press release about the letter, Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, says,

“Carbon markets have failed to reduce emissions for over 20 years. Moreover, they have increased conflicts that threaten the rights and sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples. Article 6 of the Paris Agreement will enshrine the impacts of climate change by increasing carbon markets and offsets, which do nothing to reduce emissions at source, and cause violence to Indigenous Peoples where the offsets projects are implemented. We need strong negotiation at the UNFCCC to end Article 6 before it is too late.”

And Jim Walsh, Policy Director of Food & Watch Watch says,

“Carbon offsets schemes are little more than a ruse dreamed up by the fossil fuel industry and big agricultural interests to hide the harms they pose to public health, the environment and our climate. The Biden Administration must show real climate and environmental justice leadership by opposing these schemes and moving forward strong policies that will get to the root of the problem by rapidly phasing out fossil fuels and factory farming.”

Here is the letter in full:

March 20, 2024

The Honorable John Podesta
Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave
Washington, D.C.

Re: Alliance Against Carbon Offsets Pursuant to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and in Support of Effective Alternatives for U.S. Climate Legislation & Treaties

Dear Mr. Podesta,

We urge you, as the Senior Advisor to the President on International Climate Policy, to oppose the development of a global carbon market pursuant to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, for the reasons listed below, and to call for policies that will effectively address the climate crisis. We now have several decades of experience that demonstrate how carbon market schemes do not reduce fossil fuel extraction and combustion or deforestation. Rather, carbon markets and offsets allow polluting industries to increase greenhouse gas emissions, while falsely claiming they have reduced emissions, as well as embrace technologies and practices that can also increase greenhouse emissions.

We urge you to oppose carbon markets and carbon offsets because they are inherently flawed:

• Lack of additionality: Carbon offsets are rarely additional, meaning they often are based on emissions reductions that would have happened in the absence of the carbon offset schemes. This diverts resources to activities that would have happened in the absence of carbon offset schemes and allows for double counting of any potential benefits.

• Dangerous for Indigenous Peoples: Carbon offset projects have divided Indigenous communities and threaten their rights and sovereignty.

• Harm Frontline and Environmental Justice Communities: Carbon offsets erroneously justify continuing greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn can increase harmful air pollution that disproportionately impacts disadvantaged communities.

• Impermanent: Carbon offset schemes incentivize practices that have the potential to temporarily reduce greenhouse emissions, while justifying practices that will permanently release emissions into the atmosphere and result in net increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

• Unverifiable: Carbon offsets rely on third party verifiers who have financial incentives to game the system by verifying offsets that are also impermanent.

• Undermine Global Climate Goals: Carbon offsets will create a strong perverse incentive, allowing parties to the Paris Agreement to avoid real and meaningful reductions in greenhouse gasses by opting into ineffective international carbon offset schemes.

Time is running out. The International Institute for Sustainable Development and the International Energy Agency agree that new oil and gas developments are “incompatible” with the 1.5°C target called for in the Paris Agreement. Allowing specious offsets to justify continuing emissions would be a grave mistake for our planet. We are already seeing the impacts of climate change with ever increasing extreme weather events resulting in flooding, droughts, wildfires and extreme temperatures, which are impacting food production, access to drinking water and leading to unprecedented death and destruction. With U.S. oil and gas production and atmospheric CO₂ at their highest levels ever, we cannot afford national and international climate policy based on a known climate scam to further delay the need to rapidly phase out fossil fuels.

As negotiations on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement continue and loopholes for so-called abated fossil fuels are enshrined, it is critical that you highlight the serious consequences of continuing down the path of implementing global carbon markets, and resist efforts to move them forward. Banking on greenhouse gas offsets to save our planet is neither sensible nor possible. Since the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, the parties have spent nine years debating how to structure Article 6 in order to facilitate a UN sponsored global carbon offset market. Despite the extensive evidence of offsets flaws and failures, parties are currently working on methodologies to quantify and verify flawed carbon dioxide removal (CDR) projects as tradeable carbon offsets.

Biological CDR in a carbon market such as carbon sequestration through trees, coral, and biomass, have not functioned as a solution to climate change and cannot be guaranteed in perpetuity. Studies continue to demonstrate that biological carbon offset projects lack scientific justification, are difficult or impossible to verify, and increase serious conflicts which threaten the rights and sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples. Likewise, despite decades in development, CDR technologies such as carbon capture and storage, remain costly, energy intensive, and impermanent ‘solutions’ to a planet in crisis. In most cases, they are primarily used to prolong fossil fuels production. What is worse, these illusory carbon trading schemes create additional risks to communities and our climate. Storing carbon underground can cause earthquakes, contaminate drinking water, increase air pollution, and leak greenhouse gasses through pipelines and storage infrastructure.

Further, carbon markets also impact food and agriculture. Carbon credit schemes on farmland have been associated with land grabs, often benefiting polluters more than farmers, and are easily reversible. Providing carbon credits for methane digesters incentivizes an increase in herd size resulting in more manure, thereby creating additional emissions along with water and air pollution. Digesters are expensive and mostly used on large-scale factory farms, where digesters are already receiving various state and federal subsidies, and therefore not “additional” to what otherwise would occur. Digesters also further entrench the natural gas industry, using fossil fuel infrastructure and energy systems that are dangerous for the planet. It is time to change course.

We know how to curtail greenhouse gas emissions – a rapid, strategic phaseout of fossil fuels including regulation, public investment and international treaties. Carbon offsets and associated markets are the opposite of an effective tool for this rapid, strategic phaseout. They obscure transparent accounting of our progress toward meeting the targets necessary to stabilize our climate. As the new climate envoy for the United States, we call on you to lead us on a path that will oppose the use of climate scams inherent in carbon trading schemes so that we can phase out fossil fuels at the source and build healthy communities.

Original Signatories

Indigenous Environmental Network
Food & Water Watch
Institute for Agriculture and Trade
Policy National Family Farm Coalition

Additional Signatories

ADOS Mississippi/ADOS Empowerment Project
Alaska Community Action on Toxics
Animals Are Sentient Beings, Inc.
Better Path Coalition
Between the Waters
Beyond Extreme Energy
Biofuelwatch
Boone County Farmers & Neighbors
Bucks Environmental Action
CASE Citizens Alliance for a Sustainable Englewood
Catskill Mountainkeeper
Center for Biological Diversity
Center for Common Ground
Citizens Caring for the Future
Clean Energy Action
Climate Communications Coalition
Climate Reality San Diego
Colectivo Voces Ecológicas COVEC
Collective Abundance
COMMUNITY ACTION FOR HEALTH & DEVELOPMENT (CAHED)-Director
Cooperation Jackson
Corporate Accountability
DivestNJ
Don’t Gas the Meadowlands Coalition
Earth Action, Inc.
Edmund Rice International
Elders Climate Action
Environmental Communion NJ
Association UCC
Ephram Mwangi Foundation
Extinction Rebellion Seattle
Extinction Rebellion Western Mass
Family Farm Defenders
Farm Forward
Fat Cat Farm
Fellowship of Scientists and Engineers
Fox Valley Citizens for Peace & Justice
For Love of Water (FLOW)
Fossil Free Tompkins
Fresh Approach
Friends of the Earth, International
Friends Of the Forestville Dam, Inc.
Grassroots Environmental Education
Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
Great Plains Action Society
Greater New Orleans Growers Alliance
Green Finance Observatory
Green Foster Action Uganda
GreenLatinos
HobokenRESIST
IBON Africa
Institute for Policy Studies Climate Policy Program
Intheshadowofthewolf
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement
Just Transition Alliance
Kapchanga
Kewaunee CARES
Lombard Art Gallery
Long Island Progressive Coalition
MARBE S.A., Costa Rica
McDonough NY Concerned Citizens
Methane Action
Milwaukee Riverkeeper
Movement Rights
Network for Ecofarming in Africa
New Mexico Climate Justice
North American Climate, Conservation and Environment (NACCE)
Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA-NY)
NYCLASS (New Yorkers for Clean, Livable, and Safe Streets)
Peace Action WI
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania
Plant Based Treaty
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
Public Goods Institute
Pueblo Action Alliance
RerootD Futures Initiative
Rise Up WV
River Queen Greens
Rural Vermont
Rural-VT
SPROUT
Sprout NOLA
St. Croix County Defending Our Water
Stop the Algonquin Pipeline Expansion
The Enviro Show
The Oakland Institute
The Phoenix Group
Too Tall Farm & Nursery
Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community
United Native Americans
Vibrant Littleton
Waterspirit

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