What is Voluntary Carbon Market? How does it work in India? | DTE Call For Action

[Music] this is vant from karnataka's dagali Village this is Rahul sonani from fol Sagar Village in madhia Pradesh both of them have received improved cook stoves under a carbon offset project but what is the point of these offsets if the villagers do not use the cook stoves regularly Jenny mitula and Lita own coffee plantations in the araku valley the coffee saplings are provided by the nandi foundation a part of the carbon offset project of paris-based livelihoods funds but what is the value of these offsets if the tribals of araku had been growing this coffee for decades much before carbon credits even came into existence in the picture moreover the people we spoke to are not aware of carbon credits buying and selling carbon otherwise known as the carbon Market is seen as an important way to combat climate change extreme weather events are costing all economies thus the idea of gaining credits for reducing greenhouse gases and then trading those credits for the right price can not only help developing nations financially but it can also help them transition to a clean economy it is a win-win scenario however many of these stories highlight the loopholes in the carbon markets this makes matters worse as it creates a positive facade to an Ever growing [Music] problem before going into the loopholes of the credits let's understand what the carbon credit Market really is it is simple in some ways complicated in others because of this carbon Market you will be able to pick up a luxury bag that is labeled carbon neutral or you could take a flight that has offset your emissions or even read about an oil or food company that has declared a net carbon footprint you may wonder how these items and companies become carbon neutral by by buying credits which are then issued against certain Planet healing activities think of these activities as credit cards that either reduce greenhouse gas emissions like for example building a solar plant or using an efficient cook stove or they can remove gases greenhouse gases from the atmosphere for for instance you could plant trees which will absorb carbon dioxide the management of this Market of buyers and sellers is done through a paraphernalia of Registries project developers validators verifiers and carbon exchanges but the fact is that there is no official carbon Market in the world as the global Community is still discussing the rules that will govern such a trade in the past decade or so however a voluntary carbon Market also known as the vcm has grown with projects across the world India generates 1if of the world's carbon credits and it is thus at the Forefront of carbon [Music] investment on the 11th of July we reached out to a representative of a developer named eeky Energy Services with some questions about their project and a request to visit them the representative declined to discuss the projects and denied our request for visits we attempted to contact others within the organization but this led us nowhere on the 8th of August we visited 's office and were informed that visits could not be arranged due to client confidentiality agreements in a similar fashion we continueed to reach out to developers standard Setters verifiers and Traders what unfolded was unexpected countless calls messages and Elusive meetings left us with little information some demanded ndas While others protected project locations under client agreements livelihoods fund a Paris based developer denied site visits citing poor road conditions during the monsoons and Insurgency issues in araku the entire process took over 3 months before we finally decided to gather information we had by scrutinizing hundreds of project documents and news reports this letters from NOS local leaders and some developers to individuals who were the subjects of various projects that earned carbon credits we tracked and followed these projects in 40 locations across four states with our findings and subsequent analysis we once again approached organizations associated with these projects but a series of emails resulted in only a handful of responses this illustrates how challenging it was to gain insight into the activities of just a few projects in a market that promotes public benefits [Music] price or re plus biog gas if the purpose of the market is to invest in projects that will lead to reduction in emissions in different parts of the world then the market must be based on paying for the real cost of the projects we found that the market is actually paying a fraction of renewable energy project or a biog gas project a clear pens as compared to the cost of building these projects the second was the overestimation of credits in distributing cook stoves developers assumed that by merely Distributing cook stoves to people they would use these devices and these devices only willfully ignoring the fact that some of them already had LPG cylinders furthermore they assumed that people's behavior would change solely by providing them cook stoves this led to a serious overestimation of emission reduction claims from such projects third benefits to communities training and saplings this is what a farmer in aruku Valley gets from a carbon credit Project based on Plantation of trees Farmers putting in the labor on his or her own land but earning none of the millions fetch from the carbon credits a rural household paying for a cook stove but getting nothing in return when they help cut emissions by using it the poor are essentially subsidizing or laboring for the emission reductions of the rich the most critical issue is to whose account should the abated carbon be credited this is not a hypothetical question but a real one to achieve the target of 50% of India's electric power requirements from non-fossil fuel sources every megawatt of Renewable Power will need to be counted and factored in some 675 Indian renewable energy projects are registered under Vera and gold standard Registries for 268 million carbon credits of which 148 million have been claimed against of ass sets so how can these be accounted for India's ndc's or nationally determined contributions or can they be will this lead to double counting the current carbon Market could in fact end up increasing emissions in the world the buyer of the credit let's say an airline company that has assured its customers to offset its carbon footprint or a food company that has declared itself Net Zero they have continued to Emit and they have in fact even increased their emissions saying that they have bought credits but as these credits have been overestimated or they may not really exist the reductions are notional this is a double jeopardy this is also the agenda for the upcoming cop 28 in Dubai for more insight into the world of carbon markets and how to regulate them do read our latest issue discredited and for more such explainers as these follow our latest series call for [Music] [Music] action [Music]

Channel: Down To Earth

Views: 33,389

Keywords: Environment, Science, Sustainable Development, health Mobility, Down to Earth, voluntary carbon market, Carbon market india, VCM, carbon credits, carbon trading, greenhouse gas emissions, buying credits, plant-healing activities, carbon neutral, COP28, COP Dubai, yt:cc=on

Id: CpR41m6N3ho

Length: 9min 4sec (544 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 24 2023