Simon Mundy is right to raise an alarm over carbon credit risks, but it is the wrong alarm (Moral Money, FT.com, December 11).
Contributing approximately 8.1bn tonnes of carbon dioxide to global emissions each year, forest loss is a singular global challenge. There is no pathway to stabilise the climate without essentially halting deforestation by 2030. Yet, although 145 nations have committed to halt forest loss by 2030, a 2024 Forest Declaration Assessment report said global forest loss had increased in 2023.
While experts have long warned that carbon credits from conservation projects, which aim to cut emissions by reducing the deforestation of threatened forests, may be less effective than claimed (ie the projects are overcredited), the science underlying these warnings has been called into question. In fact, other recently-published studies have concluded the opposite — that carbon crediting from these projects has been robust.
We have shown in a global analysis that forest conservation projects that issue carbon credits are just as likely to have been undercredited, meaning that their impact on the climate has been greater than claimed. Overall, we found that the system has been remarkably robust over its lifetime because pre-project deforestation predictions, against which projects’ performance in reducing deforestation is measured and carbon credits generated, closely matched the actual deforestation that has since taken place in the jurisdictions surrounding projects. The “integrity crisis” has been one of perception, not reality.
Forest loss is ultimately driven by economics. To halt it, conservation must generate economic value for forest communities and governments so that it can be a viable livelihood and development option in light of the alternatives. The voluntary carbon markets were scaling up rapidly in response to this urgent need but have now been stalled for almost two years.
In the light of this, the real risk is that overblown concerns about carbon credit “integrity” from a few in the environmental movement will halt the flow of climate finance to the forest communities who lack alternatives, and in whose hands the fate of the world’s forests rests. What then?
Joshua Tosteson
Chief Executive, Everland
Dr Maren Pauly
Director, Research and Evaluation, Everland, New York, NY, US
