World leaders met in New York this September to discuss climate change. Probably without reference to the multi-billion-dollar financial scandals surrounding carbon credits. Or the fraudulent emission-reduction numbers coming out of China. Or the US and Europe’s failure to meet goals.
A glance at recent headlines reveals some interesting stories.
● “German Shell whistleblower says Chinese emission reduction oilfield was actually a chicken farm.”
● “A $5 billion scandal is rocking Germany’s carbon credit market…. In December [2023], a report in the German outlet Handelsblatt said that half of projects in China are probably fake or misrepresenting their effectiveness.”
● “Germany Rejects Carbon Credit Certificates Over Alleged China Fraud…. The German Environment Agency on Friday [September 6, 2024] said it had rejected carbon credit certificates from eight projects over concerns about fraudulent emission-reduction reporting and certification in China.”
● “Germany Cracks Down on China Green Fraud in Deepening Scandal…. Whistleblower allegations in January [2024] helped trigger the agency’s investigation, which will scrutinize another 13 projects in addition to the ones it has already disqualified. Globally, there are 75 [carbon mitigation] projects, most of which are in China.”
All this recalls a long-running gag in Howie Carr’s newspaper columns and radio show: “Honest Howie’s carbon credits make a great stocking stuffer this Christmas!” You can trust Honest Howie’s carbon credits.
Red washing, greenwashing
Corruption in Red China has leaked out into world markets, but the proliferation of greenwashing scams is not exclusively Chinese.
Via an LSE blog, we learn that on January 18, 2023, The Guardian published “an explosive article accusing Verra—the world’s premier certifier of carbon credits—of grossly overstating the emissions reductions associated with its ‘avoided deforestation’ credits.”
Avoided deforestation is the claim that an existing stand of trees was not cut down, thereby generating carbon credits. This concept is “used by the likes of Gucci, Shell, and Disney.”
Doesn’t this open the door to Honest Howie making the same claim year after year? Namely, that he again didn’t cut the trees, so please give him the credits (again) so he can sell them (again) to Gucci, Shell, and Disney?
Apparently, you can make money saving the planet. There seems to be a lot of opportunity here. Per Polaris Market Research, “The global voluntary carbon credit market was estimated at USD 1,908.41 million in 2023 and is projected to hit USD 14,560.17 million by 2032.”
A long-time villain on the harmful emissions scene has been China. This is a fairly typical characterization: “China is the world’s top emitter, producing more than a quarter of the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to climate change…. In the past ten years, China has emitted more greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, per year than any other country in the world.”
Surprisingly, China keeps attending climate meetings and making agreements. This raises some questions. First, what do the parties get out of it?
2060 on the dot
In the West, it is important to climate change activists that all the world be on board with their program. This creates an incentive to engage China and other industrializing states. Holdouts would jeopardize claims of climate consensus and embolden “deniers.”
In Beijing, meanwhile, it is important to be seen as a responsible world citizen. Red China is a member of the UN Security Council and a believer in and supporter of the UN, whence all the climate alarmism and goals originate. Beijing is not going to fight city hall…openly.
Chinese resistance is rather passive. Specific goals are agreed to for far future dates. General goals or those subject to do-it-yourself monitoring can be adopted earlier. So we have President Xi Jinping telling the United Nations “that his country would reach carbon neutrality by 2060,” i.e., long after his own retirement and even death.
But it is not Xi who is negotiating climate treaties. For many years, it was “top climate negotiator” Xie Zhenhua. Notice that “top climate negotiators” in the West are the likes of former Senator John Kerry and former central banker Mark Carney, “UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance.”
The really important thing about a “top climate negotiator” is the more or less independent mandate. This person is a kind of freelancer. Not being part of the foreign office or the state department, the “top climate negotiator” has nothing to trade in negotiations except positive or negative headlines.
Negotiations at the level of secretary of state would allow horse trading. You don’t see much of that. At the level of “climate negotiator,” negotiations can lead, at best, only to positive joint communiques. The progress can be overstated, providing clickbait for greenies. “ ‘Overblown,’ said climate negotiations historian Joanna Depledge, referring to Kerry’s assessment of Dubai as the high point of climate diplomacy.”
Bad COPs
Kerry was summarizing his performance at the annual Conference of the Parties that convened in Dubai this year. These COPs witness a lot of excitement ginned up by the political orphans known as climate negotiators.
Then they go away for a year like withering perennials. In the meantime, industrializers keep industrializing and green scammers keep scamming. □
James Roth works for a major defense contractor in Virginia.
