In new guidance, the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI) is promoting the use of carbon credits to camouflage the fact that companies grappling with their indirect (scope 3) emissions are off track to reach their commitments. But carbon credits must not replace direct emissions reductions, NGOs warn.<\/p>\n
The Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI), which develops methodologies and criteria with the stated goal of helping to define what a high-quality carbon credit is, has published\u00a0new guidance<\/a>\u00a0for companies on scope 3 emissions (indirect emissions from a company\u2019s value chain). It allows a company to rely on carbon credits to claim progress towards their climate targets until as late as 2040 \u2014 a date with no basis in science and an approach that could disadvantage frontrunners and be used by others to mask climate inaction.<\/p>\n \u201cVCMI risks undermining its own credibility by allowing companies to present themselves as climate leaders while, in reality, falling behind on their commitments and potentially even increasing their indirect (Scope 3) emissions,\u201d emphasises Lindsay Otis Nilles, CMW expert on global carbon markets<\/a>: \u201cOffering a pathway that rewards appearance over real action not only weakens trust, but also delays the urgent transformation the climate crisis demands.\u201d<\/p>\n The only way for companies to truly decarbonise is to reduce emissions<\/a> at their source. If they are allowed to offset their emission gaps through carbon credits<\/a> for the next 15 years, as the VCMI approach suggests, it risks enabling them to avoid the harder work of actually reducing their scope 3 emissions. Reducing emissions should happen today, not in a decade, the NGOs say.<\/p>\n \u201cThe VCMI scope 3 claim risks dialling back the already insufficient levels of corporate climate<\/a> ambition. We believe it is highly likely that the Scope 3 Claim could mislead investors, consumers and regulators, allowing companies with ambitious-sounding emission reduction targets to actually continue increasing their emissions in the short-term,\u201d echoes Thomas Day of NewClimate Institute. \u201cThis could disadvantage ambitious companies with genuine climate strategies<\/a> by allowing laggard competitors to exaggerate their own efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n Reducing emissions at their source is the\u00a0only credible pathway to net zero<\/a>, NGOs and scientists say. Carbon credits<\/a> can shift focus and resources away from direct emissions reductions, weakening incentives for companies to reduce their scope 3 emissions. Delaying real action for over a decade will only intensify the impacts of the climate crisis<\/a> while allowing companies to falsely claim climate leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cCorporate climate action<\/a> in accordance with the Paris Agreement implies steep emission reductions across all scopes. Carbon credit<\/a> schemes are a false solution: they consistently fail to deliver their purported climate benefits, while causing real harm to people and biodiversity. Claims that rest on carbon credits<\/a> will be built on shaky foundations, and will not pass the scrutiny of civil society, regulators or courts,\u201d observes Niels Debonne, senior policy officer at Milieudefensie.<\/p>\n Allowing carbon credits in scope 3 does a disservice to companies that are taking real steps to reduce their emissions. Under VCMI\u2019s new guidance, there might be no obvious difference between the claims of companies that are leading the way in emissions reduction and those simply buying carbon credits<\/a> to avoid having to reduce emissions.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a huge task for companies to reduce their scope 3 emissions, that\u2019s why they need help doing it. Carbon credits don\u2019t meet this need. Emissions don\u2019t just disappear into thin air \u2014 and they shouldn\u2019t disappear in data<\/a> either,\u201d explains Thea Lyngseth, a programme officer at the Environmental Coalition on Standards (ECOS). \u201cInvesting in carbon credits for scope 3 instead of reducing emissions at their source only delays real climate<\/a> action, as well as wasting companies\u2019 time and resources.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In new guidance, the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI) is promoting the use of carbon credits to camouflage the fact that companies grappling with their indirect (scope 3) emissions are off track to reach their commitments. But carbon credits must not replace direct emissions reductions, NGOs warn. The Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11065"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11071,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11065\/revisions\/11071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Hard but necessary<\/h3>\n