Corporations invested in carbon offsets that were ‘likely junk’, analysis says

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By Nina Lakhani, The Guardian. 

Excerpt: Delta, Gucci, Volkswagen, ExxonMobil, Disney, easyJet and Nestlé are among the major corporations to have purchased millions of carbon credits from climate friendly projects that are “likely junk” or worthless when it comes to offsetting their greenhouse gas emissions, according to a classification system developed by Corporate Accountability, a non-profit, transnational corporate watchdog. Some of these companies no longer use CO2 offsets amid mounting evidence that carbon trading do not lead to the claimed emissions cuts – and in some cases may even cause environmental and social harms. ...The fossil fuel industry is by far the largest investor in the world’s most popular 50 CO2 offsetting schemes. At least 43% of the [81 million] CO2 credits purchased by the oil and gas majors are for projects that have at least one fundamental flaw and are “probably junk”, according to the analysis.... 


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