CO2 certificates: Greenwashing in the African savannah (German) | Hacker News Reader

CO2 certificates: Greenwashing in the African savannah (German)

zeit.de

35 pointsBiologist12318 comments

This is the classic problem with CO2 certificates.

By its nature, the incentive with CO2 credits is to find the company who most optimistically thinks that the most CO2 can be removed for the least money. You then pay that company, and take a credit for how much CO2 that they think was removed. This is an incentive that rewards fraud.

In an effort to not become too fraudulent, the industry has created certification groups with names like Clean Development Mechanism, Verified Carbon Standard, Gold Standard, Climate Action Reserve, and American Carbon Registry. Each tries to look as respectable as possible, while being paid to sign off on credits.

Some environmental groups think it is worthwhile to work with these. So the WWF worked with Gold Standard and says it is best in class (though imperfect), and recommends against some others (particularly Clean Development Mechanism). Other environmental groups see the incentives for greenwashing as too bad to be involved with, such as https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/50689/carbon-....

But the fundamental incentives are such that even the best programs will erode over time. Even if Gold Standard is good now (which is not obvious), I would bet money that it will not be as good in 10-20 years.

So, buyer beware.

Besides all the problem with CO2 accounting that the article talks about, what actually happens when you go a few levels down the food chain of the global economy and you pay those people to stop producing?

If you buy CO2 certificates from the Amazon rain forest: those people were cutting down wood for use in construction and to clear up land for farming. What happens then when those activities are stopped? The demand for housing and food is still there.

If you force shepherds to scale down their herds to allow the vegetation to grow back, what happens to the demand for food? The demand is still there?

CO2 accounting seems to me to be intractable. If you buy certificates and give these people cold hard cash, it does not remove the demand for whatever those people were producing. So then, the supply will shift to other areas and the CO2 emissions will shift with it.

Am I wrong in my thinking?

So I was recently in Brazil and I spent a few days with my wife's cousin who makes his living off of the rainforest in a sustainable way. He harvests wood from trees that have fallen, without him chopping them down. He maintains beehives of indigenous bees that are only productive in the rainforest. He does some poaching of birds and orchids but he insists that it's sustainable. I suppose he could be lying but he lives in the rainforest and raises his kids in that lifestyle so he has every motive to not harm the ecosystem. Unlike most of the people where I live, he didn't seem like the type to only care about making as much money as possible.

I do think that it's absolutely possible to have the land be productive in an ecologically sustainable way while producing carbon offsets. I do think that a big part of it will require creating a market for these sustainable products and having a verification process to ensure that they are produced sustainably.

The main ideas it that theoretically the demand should shift to greener alternative. However, as far as I understand the issue is that currently it shifts the demand to another producer. There is this concept of additionality in carbon offsets but it's intractable to measure. IMHO the only way to really prevent it would be to pay most or all polluters so they stop. One day we might get there when we've offset most emission sources of a given type (ie say land forest). But in the meantime, those offsets are not actually moving the needle. And also, does that mean we should start paying via carbon offsets every single owner of an oil pit so they don't get oil off the ground?

IMHO, the only activity that should have ever been considered as carbon-negative is actually taking carbon out of the air, and storing it in the ground somehow. IT is extremely expensive, which highlights why it is so important to prevent carbon emissions in the first place.

All of these suggestions which seek to reduce someone else's carbon output somehow, seem fraught with moral hazard or other significant problems.

Even that, there are plenty of claims that if you pump CO2 down into oil wells it'll be trapped there for millennia...

While the reality is that pumping co2 into oil wells helps get more oil out, and then eventually the co2, at high pressure, converts to carbonic acid in the water, and flows out. And since carbonic acid is acidic, whatever tiny crack it finds to get out of will rapidly get larger as fast moving acidic fluid erodes it bigger and you have a sudden release of massive quantities of 'stored' CO2.

How would you incentivize poor countries to keep their dense vegetation instead of cutting it down for cash crops and pastures?

People want to “help the climate” but not have to change any of the behaviour in the process. Until that fundamental concept shifts, nothing will really help (imo)

Your examples aren’t really wrong, but is the demand level really legitimate in the first place? The amount of food waste is insane, stop people wasting and supply could drop to match. Make meat more of a premium food since it costs (the environment) more to produce.

Until humans realise they need to change their behaviours, things like CO2 accounting is just moving deck chairs around on the Titanic.

The country earns hard currency and can then purchase food from abroad ??

In Mathematics, there are metrics that differ for small values, but converge (percentage wise) for larger values. Then the metrics are deemed equivalent.

Hopefully CO2 accounting is similar: As more countries and industries participate, the loop holes become obvious and can be dealt with by minor adjustments.

Whether or not it results in reducing CO2, there is a benefit: it's a way for some Africans to make money.

It would be a pity if they are doing something that doesn't work to earn it, though. It would make their work bullshit jobs. (There are worse things, though.)

Carbon credits: central issuer doling out credits to hoard so you can sell them to a bank or polluter at a higher price in 2030

except there are many central issuers in a fragmented market and they all believe they’re doing something they’re not

so like crypto tokens

Certification authorities find it easier to approve credits for worthy causes. Because even if the science is lacking, at least something worthy happens.

This doesn't improve my trust in the overall system though.

We have deep respect for the German language, but HN is an English-language site, so articles here need to be in English.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

the elephant in the room: agricultural fires in Africa! Let's start here then I will be willing to listen to our elites

Isn't that just burning off grasses and similar short-lived vegetation? That kind of thing doesn't like it'd make much difference, unless there are permanent changes to the landscape.

I thought the subject was co2 emissions. Here you have the biggest source

A big number, but wouldn't the same amount of CO2 have been emitted naturally from the same grasses naturally dying and rotting?

Yes, but green fanatics don’t understand that. It’s too complex for their playbook.

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