ProPublica: Carbon Credits Don't Fight Climate Change

Speaker 1: 00:00 At a time when the Trump administration is scaling back environmental protections. California continues as a leader in battling climate change. Well now California is considering expanding the state's carbon offset program. Polluters would be allowed to further compensate for their access emissions by paying to preserve the Amazon rainforest. But the benefits of this plan are far from certain, according to an extensive report by Propublica as part of coverage from the KPBS climate change desk pro public. Our reporter Lisa Song spoke to KPBS round table host Mark Sauer to explain, Speaker 2: 00:36 we'll start with the idea behind letting companies buy carbon credits. How's the program supposed to benefit the environment? Protect a vital Amazon rain forest, for example. Speaker 3: 00:45 So the general idea is if you can pay someone in a tropical country to not cut down some trees that they were planning to cut down, then the avoided carbon emissions from that can be used to compensate for someone else across the world who is emitting some amount of carbon dioxide as usual, maybe from a factory or an oil refinery. And the idea is that if you can provide a cheap option for companies to reduce their carbon, then perhaps doing this, you could offset your carbon footprint and help protect vital ecosystems at the same time. Speaker 2: 01:25 So it's attractive to the companies because they don't have to make, say, a major capital investment to get down to where they need to be. Speaker 3: 01:31 Right? It's a way to let countries or companies or corporations find a cheap solution to help reduce some of their greenhouse gases. Speaker 2: 01:39 All right. And, and it all sounds like a great idea, but in your piece you conclude carbon credits haven't and won't deliver the climate benefit that they promise. Explain how you came to that conclusion. Speaker 3: 01:48 So there's actually been decades of research on scientific uncertainties and problems with carbon offset credits in general. And that's not just these kinds of avoided deforestation offsets, but other types as well. And in more recent years, as these types of forestry offsets have taken off, there's been more research talking about the problems with them. That comes down to scientific issues like uncertainties in measuring the amount of carbon bound up in a forest. I, it also comes down to some fundamental problems such as to prove that your offset is real. You have to show that the money you're getting for the offset is the one thing that's the reason why you are not cutting down the forest. So this becomes a very tricky cause and effect scenario because how do we know the people didn't cut down the forest because of these carbon offsets and not because of some other overlapping conservation program in their state or country or maybe because of a drop in the price of beef or soy, which would then lower the demand for cutting down trees. Speaker 2: 02:57 So the cause and effect is really murky then. Speaker 3: 02:59 Yeah, the cause and effect is really murky but and really hard to prove. But in order for an offset to be real, it has to be traced back to an actual cause and effect. Speaker 2: 03:08 And you say the carbon credit projects are worse than doing nothing. Why is that? Speaker 3: 03:13 Well, the idea is if you have a carbon offset project that isn't offsetting all of the carbon it claims it is, then you have a situation where somebody who paid for the offsets has released the amount of carbon dioxide they were going to. But there's this additional CO2 that is not being accounted for because of the problems on the other side with the offset. So you've actually increased the amount of co two in the air and you're not accounting for that increase. Speaker 2: 03:42 So how to proponents of carbon credit programs respond to the findings in your reporting? Speaker 3: 03:47 Uh, well they're not very happy. I think that there's sort of two different types of of responses. There are the people who support the smaller types of carbon offset projects. The ones run by NGOs or some corporations, they tend to operate at a smaller scale. They're saying the small scale projects really work and you know, you haven't given us enough credit. And then there are the people on a different side who are really working on the bigger statewide or net net nationwide programs of these type. Like the one we visited, an awkward Brazil who are saying, well, the problems with the small scale projects are well known. They've long been documented. You shouldn't talk about them in the same story as when you talk about the big government run programs because they're much better. So you know, there is some internal disagreement because there are different sides and different types of people who support different types of these offset programs and projects. Speaker 2: 04:45 And you visited the project in Brazil, it's seen as a shining example of the success of carbon credits, uh, programs. Uh, what was your takeaway from that visit? Speaker 3: 04:53 So the program we visited in Brazil is in a state called [inaudible]. And right now it's not actually producing offsets. They are getting paid for progress in reducing deforestation, but the people paying them our programs in Germany and those funders are not getting permission to pollute more. So it's sort of a lower stakes version of what could happen if California passes that standard that they're considering. Because California's decision could open the door for acri actually selling carbon offsets that would allow someone else to pollute. And what we found was, you know, this awkward program is considered the most advanced in the world and it's had some success, but it also has problems. For example, we talked to several officials who very bluntly said they're more interested in the money that would come from selling their offsets than they are in the details of the validity of the offsets themselves. Speaker 3: 05:53 Their concern is the emergency situation on the ground. They're seeing deforestation happening and they just need money to help stop deforestation. And the general idea is if that comes with some amount of credits that aren't valid, that risk is worth it because they need to protect the forest. Now, and that's kind of a fundamental issue here is, you know, we talked to scientists who said, yes, we know these programs have problems. They have some scientific uncertainties, but we can't afford to worry about those details because we don't have a better solution and we desperately need money to help preserve forests. Speaker 2: 06:29 Can you mention California's expanding or looking to expand its carbon credits program? What's the situation there? Is that likely to happen? Speaker 3: 06:35 So it's unclear right now. They have spent many years working on something called the tropical forest standard, which is a kind of blueprint or rule book on what makes a good program for preserving tropical forests. And so one way you can use that blueprint if state regulators approve it, is you can use it as a tool to link up states like acri and to help them sell their carbon credits to, for example, California or other countries and states. Speaker 2: 07:08 That was pro publica reporter Lisa Song speaking with KPBS round table host marks our Paula Maura contributed to Propublica's reporting on the carbon credit program. Speaker 4: 07:19 [inaudible].