REDD and Forest Carbon Offsets
Preservation of tropical forests is critical for conserving biodiversity; providing homes, cultural resources and livelihoods for millions of people; and for protecting our global climate. But proposals to preserve tropical forests through carbon offset projects are deeply problematic, and are a dangerous distraction from real solutions to solve climate change – namely, to radically eliminate greenhouse gas pollution at its source – and to curb the drivers of deforestation like agro-commodities and extractive industries.
REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) carbon offset credits allow polluters like refineries to keep spewing pollution and harming local communities, especially communities of color. REDD projects also have a troubled history of violence, forced decision-making, land grabs, and other abuses, particularly in Indigenous communities.
To use dubious forest offsets to mitigate growing emissions by the earth’s elite, as CARB is proposing, is putting out fires with gasoline — it’s as far from real climate action as it gets.
On Friday, Nov. 16, environmental justice groups, indigenous people’s organizations, scholars and international forest protectors will hold a press conference and rally at the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in Sacramento to denounce the agency’s misguided plan to endorse tropical forest offset credits.
If California wants to take action on forests to address the dangers of climate change, there is no better place to begin than in this state’s globally relevant forests.
With the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report this week that explores the impacts of 1.5°C global warming, the heat is on to continue doing everything we can to address the climate crisis. But not all climate solutions are created equal.
The Governor has spent the last months promoting the expansion of complicated market-based carbon trading mechanisms, known as “Cap-and-Trade,” as a cornerstone of state and global climate policy
Californians and global citizens are coming to soberly understand that California’s climate leadership may not be designed to protect people and the planet, but rather to protect polluters and their profits.