Latest news with #BarbaraHaya
E&E News
29-05-2025
- Business
- E&E News
California should end its emissions offset program, researchers say
A California program that lets polluters avoid cutting a portion of their own carbon emissions by funding projects such as forest preservation is doing little to address climate change, researchers say in a new analysis. Two University of California, Berkeley, professors who wrote the May policy brief are urging state lawmakers to replace the program, known as offsets, as they look to extend California's market-based system to cut carbon emissions. The cap-and-trade system requires California's largest carbon emitters to pay the state pollution allowances in some cases for excessive emissions. But regulated emitters can buy up to 4 percent of what they owe carbon credits in one of the state-approved offset programs throughout the U.S. that are supposed to cut greenhouse gas pollution. Each credit is supposed to represent 1 ton of emissions avoided or abated. Advertisement But many projects approved under the state's offset program do little to fight climate change, said Barbara Haya, director of the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project, which studies the effectiveness of carbon trading programs and offsets. She and Berkeley research fellow Stephan Lezak wrote the program analysis.
Scoop
03-05-2025
- Business
- Scoop
Cookstove Carbon Credits: Recipe For Cooking The Climate Books
A new report, 'Recipe for Greenwashing', commissioned by Korean NGO Plan 1.5 and co-authored by Carbon Market Watch and Director of the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project Barbara Haya, has revealed that the climate credentials of the Korean Emissions Trading Scheme (K-ETS) risk being significantly undermined by its inclusion of international carbon credits. The report analyses a sample of 21 clean cookstove projects that have supplied South Korean companies with carbon credits for use under the K-ETS, finding that on average they are likely generating 18.3 times more credits than they should. The analysis finds that the 9.7 million credits (representing 9.7 million tonnes of emissions reductions) likely have a climate impact of only approximately half a million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (531,979 tCO2e), the equivalent of 18 times more credits than are justified. Cookstove projects constitute the majority of international credits used by companies complying with the K-ETS. Companies under the K-ETS are entitled to match their emission reduction obligations with the purchase of international credits, as long as they exceed no more than 5% of the company's compliance obligation. Break the mould The analysis highlights that reliance on international credits undermines the effectiveness and credibility of the K-ETS. It mirrors the now-abandoned practice in the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), where such credits led to an inflation in supply, price crashes, and delayed domestic decarbonisation. While the EU has banned international credits from its ETS since 2021, the Korean government appears to be taking the opposite approach. Alarmingly, the government is considering raising the limit from 5% of a company's emissions threshold to 10% in the fourth period of the K-ETS (2026-2030). Doubling the share of an already problematic decision will likely have detrimental consequences for the environmental integrity of the policy. The South Korean government also plans to use international credits to reach its United Nations climate target for 2030 by including 37.5 million international credits into its nationally determined contributions. The projects analysed in the report use methodologies AMS-I.E and AMS-II.G to generate carbon credits. Generally, the number of credits a carbon credit project issues under these two methodologies is determined by a number of factors, including actual stove usage, drop-outs, fuel consumption patterns, and many more. Research, as well as a decision by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) in March, has determined that both methodologies lead to over-crediting because these methodologies rely on outdated assumptions that allow a high, and inflated, volume of credits to be generated. Both methodologies were rejected from attaining the ICVCM's Core Carbon Principles label. The wrong path The report calls on the South Korean government to ban international credits from use under the K-ETS, strengthen caps and focus on domestic emissions reductions.
