Earlier this year, Leon announced that it would be the first UK-based chain restaurant to offer carbon-neutral burgers and fries via its carbon offsets programmes. However, scientists, journalists, and NGOs are raising questions of credibility of its Redd+ projects. There are concerns that these carbon projects do not truly have a significant impact of reversing carbon emissions, potentially misleading consumers into thinking they are making a beneficial change to the environment.
For one, since carbon offsets programmes are generated based on hypothetical predictions of deforestation if the programme doesn’t exist, there are justifiable doubts as to whether threats of deforestation and carbon reductions are fully captured. This concern is well-documented—an investigation of accredited forest protection schemes by the Guardian and Greenpeace's Unearthed, for example, found instances of possible understated deforestation risks and overstated emission reductions. In response, Verra, the organisation responsible for accrediting these schemes, issued a rather fiery statement defending itself, bringing the matter to a stalemate and indicating that this concern will likely remain unresolved for the time being.
Another issue regarding carbon-neutral programmes is risk management. In this instance, the “buffer pool” mechanism employed by carbon offset projects comes to mind. A buffer pool is essentially a form of insurance where some of the credits generated from a project are set aside and cannot be sold; in instances of carbon emissions due to fires or other events, credits will be taken out from the pool and cancelled.
Forests are not only prone to fire, but also drought and pests. CarbonPlan (accessed 2 Sep 2021) uses data analytics to map out these risks based on previous historical forest data.
Among the various criticisms of this mechanism, which include out-of-date calculations and permanence, one notable criticism is how much buffer pools “insure” carbon forests in the first place. Experts have pointed out that buffer pools comprise only a fraction of the credits associated with the offset, meaning that projects are underestimating the forest-associated risks, particularly that of fires. For example, in the fire-prone Colville Indian Reservation, only 2% of credits were contributed to the buffer pool, suggesting that the pool is not created in a way that takes into full account real climate-related threats faced by Colville’s forests.
Maps of offset projects on the west coast of the US (left; Forest Trends, accessed 2 Sep 2021) compared with detected fires/hotspots of the same within the last 30 days (right; FIRMS/NASA, accessed 2 Sep 2021). California is home to a number of carbon offset projects, primarily in the northern region. Surprisingly, this is also an area where significant fire risks can be found.
Concerns about risk management are relevant in our home region of Southeast Asia as well. Currently, Indonesia is making an effort to introduce more offset projects for conservation efforts and foreign direct investment involving forests in Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku, and Papua. Considering that much of the archipelago consists of peatlands and fire-prone forests, risk management is a highly important—and complicated, since efforts to mitigate disasters vary from region to region—issue to tackle.
Maps offset projects (left; Forest Trends, accessed 2 Sep 2021) and detected fires/hotspots in the eastern region Sumatera (right; FIRMS/NASA, accessed 2 Sep 2021).
Ultimately, it would seem that the proof of concept for carbon offset forestry programmes includes at least two important factors: transparent data reporting and proper risk management systems.
By MUHAMMED Hazim, Segi Enam intern, 2 Sep 2021 | LinkedIn
Edited by Nadirah SHARIF