Call for the EU to reject carbon offsets following scandal of largest voluntary carbon offset certifier In November 2022, the European Commission presented a proposal for an European Union (EU) Regulation on certification of activities that remove carbon from the atmosphere ('carbon removals'), which included voluntary minimum standards for companies that certify voluntary carbon offsets. [...] An investigation by the Dutch independent media outlet Follow The Money underscored the extent of the flaws when it showed how the operator of one of the largest offset projects on the African continent had been allowed to continue to sell offset credits despite the seller knowing the project was overestimating alleged emission avoidance. [...] The EU should take the failure of Verra’s business model as an indication of the need to stop promoting offsets as a valid form of climate action. [...] The researchers found that over 90 percent of the credits were based on implausible claims that emissions had been avoided — making them, in the words of the journalists, "a heap of junk". [...] The mass generation of junk credits doesn't come as a surprise to many in the offsetting industry, with a broker noting that “methodologies have been so flexible that anything goes…[y]ou could choose the best option to maximise your profit.” How is it possible for such an obvious scam to go on for well over a decade? One of the researchers, who has been a long-time observer of the offset market ex.
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