The Great Carbon Offset Swindle: How Carbon Credits are Gutting the Kyoto Protocol and Why They Must Be Scrapped

The world’s biggest carbon offset market, the Clean Development Mechanism, is a global shell game that is increasing greenhouse gas emissions behind the guise of promoting sustainable development. It is handing out billions of dollars to chemical companies and the developers of destructive dams and fossil fuel projects. A rapidly growing industry of carbon brokers and consultants is lobbying for the CDM to be expanded and its rules weakened further. If we want to sustain public support for effective global action on climate change, we cannot risk one of its central planks being a program that is so fundamentally flawed. In the short term the CDM must be radically reformed; in the longer term it must be replaced.