The Great Climate Scandal. Part 4: Matt Shea visits the Carbon Forward Conference 2023

“Is it true that 90% of Verra verified carbon credits are worthless?”

This is the fourth post in a REDD-Monitor series about the Channel 4 documentary, “The Great Climate Scandal.” The documentary takes a look at the world of carbon offsetting.

The previous three posts are here:

On 4-5 October 2023, Matt Shea, the presenter of the documentary, tried to arrange an interview with someone from Verra at the Corporate Investments into Forestry and Biodiversity event. But Verra’s staff at the event were “apprehensive to chat,” as Shea put it.

“I wasn’t too worried, because I thought we still had access to the Carbon Forward conference, that Verra was also attending,” Shea comments in the documentary. Carbon Forward took place over three days, 11-13 October 2023.

“But then we got an email.”

Shea and his team had press accreditation for the conference. “But mysteriously, all of a sudden, after we asked that question to Verra today,” he says, “our invites have disappeared and apparently there’s no more space.”

So Shea and his team do what any self-respecting investigative journalist would do. They decide to go to the conference anyway, using fake names. Shea and one of his team wear button cameras.

Carbon Pulse, one of the organisers of the Carbon Forward conference, contacted REDD-Monitor to give their version of events. You can read that response, along with Verra’s and Wildlife Alliance’s responses to the Channel 4 documentary here:

A chat with Robin Rix, Verra’s Chief Legal, Policy, and Markets Officer

Inside the Carbon Forward conference, Shea finds Robin Rix, Verra’s Chief Legal, Policy, and Markets Officer.

“Hey, is it Robin from Verra?” Shea says. “Hey, good to see you again, we met at a conference a while ago.”

“Oh yeah, Robin Rix. Yes,” Rix says.

“So you work for Verra, right?” Shea asks.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“OK. So I was wondering, I had a couple of questions. How come Verra is still verifying the Tumring project even though there’s been wide-scale deforestation?” Shea asks.

“Sorry, where are you, sorry, your name is?” Rix asks.

“Kim Callaway from Forestry ESA,” Shea replies, not missing a beat.

“Oh OK, yeah,” Rix says. “So Tumring, I’m afraid I don’t know enough about the specific projects to be honest.”

Shea shows Rix some images on his tablet, from the research carried out by Climate Home News and Greenpeace’s Unearthed, published in October 2023:

“OK, so this is a picture of the forest. Have you seen these images?” Shea asks.

“Is this recent? This one? Is deforestation greater or less than what was supposed to happen? I guess that’s the question.”

“It’s up to 22% deforestation,” Shea says.

“Right, OK.”

“But does that worry you to see that? Because this is one of the things I’m so curious about how carbon offsetting works,” Shea says.

“Well, I mean, I guess for me the question is is it more or less than what would have happened, without the [inaudible]? I don’t know the answer to that question,” Rix replies.

The baseline problem (again)

Unfortunately, Rix doesn’t explain that no one else knows the answer to that question, for the simple reason that the project did go ahead. The “baseline” rate of deforestation is based on a counterfactual story about what would have happened in the absence of the project.

To make matters worse, Verra’s certification system is riddled with conflicts of interest. There is an incentive for project developers to exaggerate the baseline rate of deforestation in order to generate more carbon offsets, and therefore more money. The auditors of REDD schemes are paid by the project developers. And Verra gets most of its money from a 10 cent commission it charges on every carbon offset it verifies.

As Larry Lohmann of the UK-based solidarity organisation The Corner House points out, “The problem is not ‘bad baselines’ but the concept of counterfactual baselines itself.”

“Is it true that 90% of Verra verified carbon credits are worthless?”

“I will make a note of this and get back to you on this one,” Rix tells Shea. “I mean I’ll be right up front, if it’s greater than the baseline that’s a problem right?”

“But Verra still verifies it right?” Shea says. “So would you tell companies like Marathon, the Texas oil company, that their carbon offset credits are no longer valid?”

“So if it’s greater that what the baseline is supposed to be we would make the project proponent compensate them,” Rix says.

From what Rix said, this sounds as if the project developer would have to repay the money that companies spent on the fake carbon offsets from the Tumring REDD project. I’m pretty sure that we’ll see Verra wriggling its way out of this one in the near future.

Shea isn’t finished yet. “Is it true,” he asks, “that 90% of Verra verified carbon credits are worthless like that Guardian article said?”

“No,” Rix replies. “We don’t think so.”

Funnily enough, as Rix is talking, we see details on one of the conference TV screens of a presentation by David Antonioli, environmental markets expert. On the third day of the conference, he’s going to give a keynote address titled, “How can voluntary carbon markets overcome credibility questions?”

Antonioli, of course, was CEO of Verra for 15 years before he announced his resignation earlier this year.

An obvious answer to the question in the title of Antonioli’s talk would be for Verra to stop certifying fake carbon offsets.

I haven’t seen Antonioli’s presentation. But I’m reasonably sure that it did not include the suggestion that Verra should stop certifying fake offsets. Not least because that would demolish Verra’s business model - which relies on generating vast numbers of fake carbon offsets.

Kicked out

The conversation between Shea and Rix was cut short because Rix had to take part in a panel at one of the conference events. Shea sat down in the audience.

Shortly after he’d sat down, one of the event organisers sat next to him. “This is a private function,” she whispered to Shea. “I’m just wondering how you got in? Shall we go outside and talk?”

Shortly after, Shea and his team were asked to leave.

“So I was just kicked out of the conference for asking what I think is a very reasonable question. And if the person whose job it is is to protect these forests doesn’t know that they’re being cut down, it raises huge questions about the whole carbon offsetting industry and whether it really is a solution to climate change.”

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