EDITORIAL: REDD+ making headlines, once again for all the wrong reasons

Quantum Commodity Intelligence – It is an understatement to say that the last two weeks have not been great for the REDD+ carbon credit market, in a year that has not been good for REDD+. Kariba in Zimbabwe has continued to make news, and obviously not positive news, in the wake of Verra's suspension and review of the project following a critical New Yorker magazine article last month.

And then came a report from NGOs of alleged physical and sexual abuse by senior male staff employed at the Kasigau Corridor project in Kenya – more than allegations in some instances given the developer Wildlife Works announced that it is "in the final stages of a disciplinary process against the individuals involved in accordance with Kenyan law".

Kasigau has been put on hold and under review by Verra as a result of the allegations, with no further carbon credits to be issued until the investigation is completed. The Kenyan project joins Kariba and the Southern Cardamom project in Cambodia on hold.
Both Kasigau and Kariba projects have now also been suspended by CBL Markets, part of Xpansiv, from delivering into the Nature-based Global Emissions Offset (N-GEO) contract.

This is the first time CBL has ever suspended carbon projects from the N-GEO contract after its inception in March 2021. Southern Cardamom survives this fate for now as it remains registered under Verra's Climate, Community & Biodiversity, said CBL.

The pressure is now even more on Verra – during a year when the US-based registry and voluntary carbon market standard has come under sustained media scrutiny and criticism – particularly in relation to Kariba following South Pole's exit from the project and carbon ratings agency BeZero's decision to first downgrade the REDD+ scheme and then delist it from its coverage.

Quantum spoke to the chief executive of Carbon Green Investments, which owns Kariba, who denied the allegations of malpractice. Stephen Wentzel said the project will continue "without question" and he pledged to work with Verra to move it forward. He also claimed that the break with Switzerland-based South Pole was a mutual decision agreed by both parties.

The hope must be that Verra is able to conduct a thorough review that once and for all can determine what has gone on at this project and the others, although the Kenyan legal system seems to be already dealing with the Kasigau allegations.

The question is, will Verra's findings be accepted more widely? It's doubtful Verra will be able to please everyone. For example, the report on the Kasigau sexual abuse allegations also includes a call for the carbon offsetting industry to be stopped completely. It states that "offsetting as a commercial practice is so problematic and subject to such conflicts of interest that it should not continue". But, as is more than often the case with binary critics of carbon markets, the report offered no alternative approaches.

A global market for carbon trading will be high on the agenda at COP28, which starts later this month in Dubai, with Article 6 already central to how countries are to meet their goals under the Paris Agreement on climate change. The Article 6.4 Supervisory Body is meeting as I write – an additional online gathering aimed at finalising key issues on methodologies and carbon removals in order to be put before COP for consideration.

This marks 12 almost months of hard work by the Supervisory Body to agree a whole host of issues needed to operational the Article 6 carbon market. A thankless task at the best of times, but imagine tearing everything up and starting again, and then asking for a whole new approach from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process? That process is what it is and isn't going away. Having witnessed 11 previous COPs I know they can be incredibly frustrating, but it isn't the time to start all over again – the time for that is now long gone.