Carbon offsetting and REDD
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) has become the dominant international forest policy. Variations of REDD+ include Nature-Based Solutions and corporate pledges to achieve Zero Net Deforestation. In reality, though, deforestation continues, polluting companies use REDD+ offsets to avoid reducing their fossil fuel emissions, and zero-net deforestation pledges allow forests to be cleared in one area as long as an “equivalent” area is restored elsewhere.
Articles
17 October 2022
On 3 November, join a conversation to reflect on “15 Years of REDD: A Mechanism Rotten at the Core”.
Articles
29 April 2022
These readings are part of the publication "15 Years of REDD: A Mechanism Rotten at the Core"
Articles
29 April 2022
Offsetting is a dangerous distraction from the root causes of the climate crisis. This false solution is the flip side to the oil’s industry initial reaction to climate science: denial. Big Polluters did not invent carbon trading. But they have supported, heavily lobbied for and promoted carbon trading.
Articles
29 April 2022
At the UN climate conference in 2021, the government of Gabon presented itself as champion in the fight against climate breakdown. Would fossil fuel extraction in Gabon come to an end? No. At its core are a deal signed in 2019 with the fossil fuel producer Norway and the Grande Mayumba project.
Articles
29 April 2022
The design of the complaint mechanism has systematically failed to resolve the communities' complaints. But then, why does this mechanism exist?
Articles
28 April 2022
The UK company Envirotrade began a REDD+ project in 2003 that involved communities in the buffer zone of the Gorongosa National Park. In 2018, the company abandoned the region, leaving behind unfulfilled obligations, debts to villagers and hundreds of perplexed families.
Articles
28 April 2022
‘Carbon concessions’ established to generate and sell carbon credits are also deeply eroding communities’ structures, their organization and community reproduction.
Articles
28 April 2022
This article outlines the carbon pricing system in Colombia and reveals how mining companies have been using REDD+ to legally avoid paying taxes while claiming ‘carbon neutrality’.
Articles
28 April 2022
Letícia Yawanawa, an indigenous leader from Acre, and Dercy Teles de Carvalho, ex-president of the Xapuri Rural Workers’ Union and an advocate for "extrativistas" talk about how REDD+ has affected the lives of women in communities that depend on forests.
Articles
27 April 2022
Interview with Tom Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network.
Articles
27 April 2022
For REDD+ to work, it has to divide people in three classes. One is that which supposedly saves the forests – ‘active people with initiative’. A second class supposedly lets forests die when no REDD+ money is being paid to keep them alive – ‘predictably passive beings’. And a third class which mainly applauds the first class efforts.