Brazil’s largest carbon credit scandal, which came to light in June after a major police raid, has cast doubt on the viability of REDD+ projects in the Brazilian Amazon. The initiatives targeted by the Federal Police’s Operation Greenwashing were settled in land-grabbed areas, and its owners were part of an illegal logging organization suspected of extracting the equivalent of 38,000 truckloads of wood, authorities said. Mongabay first revealed the links between Brazil’s largest carbon credit projects and a group of illegal loggers, publishing a yearlong investigation a few weeks before the police raid. Following the operation, Verra, the largest registry of the voluntary carbon market, suspended the projects under investigation, and authorities recommended shutting down all ongoing and future REDD+ initiatives in the state of Amazonas, where the fraud took place. REDD+, which stands for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, consists of paying landowners to protect an area that could otherwise be deforested. Emissions avoided as a result of this effort can then be sold as carbon credits, and companies buying them can tell their clients and investors that they’re “offsetting” their carbon footprint. Brazil’s carbon market is not legally regulated, so most projects rely on guidelines designed by entities like Verra. The intricate rules of Verra’s registries created a market opportunity for so-called developers, companies specialized in calculating deforestation baselines and conducting all the bureaucracy of registries and audits. One of these companies is Carbonext, Brazil’s largest carbon credit generator. Partially owned by the…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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