{"id":61342,"date":"2023-08-17T23:37:43","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T21:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/?p=61342"},"modified":"2025-09-10T15:54:47","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T13:54:47","slug":"carbon-markets-are-a-threat-to-the-amazon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/story\/61342\/carbon-markets-are-a-threat-to-the-amazon\/","title":{"rendered":"Carbon markets are a threat to the Amazon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Amazon rainforest needs real protection from the enormous threats it faces. The standing forest, Indigenous Peoples, and traditional communities in the region are beset by challenges such as the advancement of agribusiness, mining, and oil exploration. False solutions like carbon offsets and carbon markets masquerade as beneficial to the Amazon and forest defenders but they are just greenwashing tools that ultimately enable more destruction.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<p>Carbon markets are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/story\/50689\/carbon-offsets-net-zero-greenwashing-scam\/\">nothing but a bookkeeping trick<\/a> intended to obscure climate wrecking-emissions. It\u2019s tree planting window dressing aimed at distracting from ecosystem destruction. In a recent publication by the <a href=\"https:\/\/bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com\/web.sas.upenn.edu\/dist\/0\/896\/files\/2023\/06\/OffsetPaper7.0-6-27-23-FINAL2.pdf\">Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media<\/a>, scientist Joseph Romm is categorical: carbon markets threaten the objectives of the Paris Agreement. This is because such \u201ccredits\u201d are not auditable, do not significantly reduce CO2 emissions or are simply unrealistic. Also, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2023\/jan\/18\/revealed-forest-carbon-offsets-biggest-provider-worthless-verra-aoe\">another research shows<\/a> that over 90% of the credits sold by the largest carbon credit certifier, Verra, are \u201cphantoms\u201d and do not represent genuine reductions in carbon emissions.<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" title=\"People&#039;s March Amazon Summit in Bel\u00e9m, Brazil\" src=\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-international-stateless\/2023\/08\/9d81c0a8-gp0stxa2i-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"The Amazon Summit in Bel\u00e9m is the beginning of an international environmental policy by the Lula government that will culminate in the COP 30, also in the capital of Par\u00e1 in 2025. In the previous events, the president defended the union of the 8 countries that host the forest to seek shared solutions.\n\nBefore the Summit the Amazonian Dialogue take place with plenary sessions organized by the Federal Government for the participation of society and registration of self-organized activities by civil society, scientific institutions and government agencies. There will be five plenary sessions that should result in letters to be presented by the representatives from the civil society groups, to the leaders of the Amazonian countries during the Summit, on the 9th of August.\" class=\"wp-image-61343\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-international-stateless\/2023\/08\/9d81c0a8-gp0stxa2i-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-international-stateless\/2023\/08\/9d81c0a8-gp0stxa2i-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-international-stateless\/2023\/08\/9d81c0a8-gp0stxa2i-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-international-stateless\/2023\/08\/9d81c0a8-gp0stxa2i-510x340.jpg 510w, https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-international-stateless\/2023\/08\/9d81c0a8-gp0stxa2i.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-element-caption\">Civil Society March in Bel\u00e9m, Brazil, demanding the protection of the Amazon during during the Amazon Summit in August 2023.<div class=\"credit icon-left\"> \u00a9 Jo\u00e3o Paulo Guimar\u00e3es \/ Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<p>Carbon markets were a focus at the Amazon Summit in Bel\u00e9m, but the countries that make up the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) failed to agree on clear zero deforestation goals. Instead of falling into the carbon market farce, the ACTO nations should look to the non-market tools within the Paris Agreement that make it possible to exchange experiences, tools and technology, in addition to funding. Article 6.8 of the Paris Agreement, which is already in operation, promotes interaction between governments to carry out mitigation and adaptation actions in an integrated, holistic and balanced way.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<p>If the ACTO countries \u2014 who came together after 14 years \u2014 are seriously concerned with the preservation of the Amazon region, then they must think of a joint and integrated plan, with clear goals to achieve zero deforestation, eliminate oil exploration and mining in the region, and turn away from greenwashing tools such as the carbon market. In addition, due consultation and participation of Indigenous Peoples is essential to guarantee and promote actions to preserve Indigenous cultures, Native nations and biodiversity.<\/p>\n\n<p><em>Davi Martins is a Senior Campaign Strategist for Greenpeace International<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Carbon offsets and carbon markets are false solutions to the climate crisis. Instead of falling into this farce, Amazonian countries must focus on protecting the existing forest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":59358,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[84,149],"p4-page-type":[59],"class_list":["post-61342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nature","tag-forests","tag-amazon","p4-page-type-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61342"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61346,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61342\/revisions\/61346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61342"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=61342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}