Forest defenders disappointed by the lack of agreement on a roadmap to tackle deforestation at COP30 say voluntary initiatives and funding promises set in motion in Belém are at least a step in the right direction.
Indigenous people and campaigners hoped the first UN climate summit held in the Amazon would define a concrete plan for saving the world’s forests. But COP30’s “Global Mutirão” decision makes only passing mention of the COP28 target adopted by all countries to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030 – a goal data shows is way off-track.
A decision on cutting carbon emissions – part of the broader package of COP30 outcomes – also made short shrift of the issue, referring only to the “challenges in addressing drivers of deforestation” while also being “mindful of pursuing sustainable development and food security”.
“Our expectations were far higher than what this COP in the heart of the Amazon ultimately delivered,” Fernanda Carvalho, head of policy for climate and energy at WWF, told Climate Home News.
Panama’s head of delegation at the talks, Juan Carlos Monterrey, said in a social media post that “a Forest COP with no commitment on forests is a very bad joke”.
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Off-course on ending deforestation
In the run-up to the talks, Brazil’s COP30 presidency made much of the Amazon venue, and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called for negotiators to deliver a roadmap to end deforestation by the end of the decade, alongside another roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels.
The world is way off-track to meet the COP28 deforestation target, first set at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021. Forested areas the size of England were lost last year as agricultural expansion continued to fuel deforestation, according to a global assessment by experts and NGOs released just before the Belém summit.
But despite winning backing from all 56 members of the Coalition of Rainforest Nations and 27 European Union member states, a deforestation roadmap – like the roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels – was relegated to a voluntary initiative to be drawn up by the COP30 presidency in time for COP31 in Türkiye next year.
COP observers blamed the weak outcome more on a lack of political will than overt opposition, but some countries did balk at giving forests stronger support.
Argentina – an agricultural powerhouse – pushed back even on a brief reference to deforestation in the mitigation text, saying mention of the drivers of deforestation “should be analysed from a historical perspective” and take into account developing countries’ differentiated responsibilities.
“Better than nothing”
Yet while the results of the “Amazon COP” were “disappointing”, COP30 did summon up “both money and political will” from countries supporting broader efforts to end deforestation, said Toerris Jaeger, executive director of Rainforest Foundation Norway, an NGO.
Carvalho said the presidency’s voluntary roadmap initiative “is better than no signal on forests”, adding that what really matters is the inclusion of forest policies in national climate plans – something that is still lagging.
A WWF analysis found that of the 39 nationally determined contributions (NDCs) filed by September’s deadline – which accounted for 42% of the world’s forests – only Brazil explicitly commits to achieving zero illegal deforestation by 2030, although implying that legal deforestation could still occur. Just 14 of the NDCs set any forest-related targets.
Outside of the official COP process, which “failed to deliver anything meaningful on deforestation”, according to Felix Finkbeiner, founder of Germany-based NGO Plant-for-the-Planet, several voluntary funding initiatives were welcomed by campaigners.
European nations pledged cash to protect rainforest in Africa’s Congo Basin and aid traditional and Indigenous communities living in forested areas, while Brazil’s brainchild, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), also secured several donor promises of support.
Tropical forest fund takes off slowly
The TFFF, which aims to pay tropical countries that conserve their forests with income from financial investments, was also left out of the “Global Mutirão” decision after being featured as an option in an earlier draft.
And despite receiving pledges of funding, almost entirely from countries so far, there are questions over how the fund will operate in practice and whether it will secure the political and financial backing it needs.
“The funding model is realistic in principle”, said Chris Dodwell, head of policy and advocacy at Impax Asset Management – one of the financial firms involved in the fund’s design, adding that investors still needed information on the fund’s reporting process, how the debt will be structured and demonstrated results protecting forests.
“The reality is that the premier investment will only flow once you have got bonds that are being issued, with all of the detail and documentation that you need. The whole concept is always going to have this idea of building over time,” Dodwell told Climate Home.
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Still, the TFFF has already received pledges totalling about $7 billion from a handful of countries, though some of them are conditional on it reaching a threshold of support.
That dwarfs the $500 million disbursed by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) for REDD+ forestry projects since 2017, but remains short of the target set by Brazilian officials for the first year of $10 billion in pledges.
Some multilateral banks are considering an investment in the fund, while some donor countries involved in its design – among them Canada, the United Arab Emirates and China – are yet to pledge a contribution.
New Congo Basin finance
In a major financial boost, European nations also pledged to raise $2.5 billion over the next five years for the protection of the Congo Basin, the second-largest rainforest on the planet and the last remaining strong carbon sink.
The pledge scaled up a previous $1.5-billion initiative launched at COP26 in Glasgow to protect the Congo Basin, which trained local populations in sustainable management, helped them secure land rights and funded protected areas, according to implementation reports.
Signatories include France, Germany, Norway, Belgium and the UK, as well as multilateral banks, including the World Bank, African Development Bank, Global Environment Facility and the GCF.
In a similar voluntary initiative, the UK, Germany, Norway and the Netherlands renewed a $1.8-billion pledge to scale up land tenure for Indigenous people and Afro-descendent communities by 2030, which was one of the main Indigenous demands at COP30.
Rachel Pasternak, global lead for forests at The Nature Conservancy, said that these voluntary initiatives are “steps in the right direction”, despite the formal negotiations lagging behind on forests. “While we need to do more, given the geopolitical realities that we’re in, there’s still a lot to celebrate.”
The post With no COP30 roadmap, hopes of saving forests hinge on voluntary initiatives appeared first on Climate Home News.
With no COP30 roadmap, hopes of saving forests hinge on voluntary initiatives
Verra has used nearly a million “hot air” carbon credits to compensate for bogus offsets generated by rice-paddy projects backed by energy giant Shell in China, Climate Home News can reveal.
In a case described as “shocking” and “deeply alarming” by experts, the leading carbon registry replaced 960,000 credits issued for rice-field methane reduction activities that had been found to overstate emissions cuts with an equivalent number of junk credits from other failed Chinese rice projects, its records show.
“It’s frankly unbelievable that Verra considers it appropriate to compensate for hot air credits with other hot air credits,” said Jonathan Crook, policy lead at Carbon Market Watch. “To pretend this is a satisfactory resolution is both absurd and deeply alarming.”
Shell’s links to bogus offsets
Shell is linked to both sets of projects, which Verra ruled as no longer valid in August 2024 after detecting “unprecedented” failures in their implementation. Last year, an investigation by Climate Home News and Dialogue Earth cast serious doubt on whether any emissions-cutting activities were carried out on the ground at all.
In response to those findings, a Shell spokesperson said “the projects in question are not managed or operated by Shell”. But the oil and gas major was closely involved in 10 rice-farming programmes in China as their “authorised representative” and, as Climate Home News reported last year, partly relied on their worthless carbon offsets to market “carbon-neutral” liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Regulatory filings in the US show that Shell, acting as a broker, last year offered to potential buyers the same carbon credits that have now been used as partial compensation for the 10 projects.
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For more than a year, Verra failed to replace nearly 2 million worthless credits issued by the 10 projects, after the Chinese developers stopped responding to the registry’s communications with them. Shell abandoned the programmes shortly after Verra ordered that the credits should be compensated.
The credits were primarily used by Shell to offset real greenhouse gas emissions created by its vast fossil fuel operations. Other users of the phantom rice-farming offsets include Chinese state-owned fossil fuel firm PetroChina, Singapore-based DBS Bank and UK energy supplier OVO Energy.
In early October this year, updates to Verra’s registry showed that 960,000 excess credits across the 10 projects had been replaced with an equivalent number of credits drawn from four separate rice-cultivation programmes that were also axed at the same time.
Those original credits had not been voided and technically remained available to the account holder, even though Verra scrapped the underlying programmes and unsuccessfully pursued their representatives for redress. The Chinese company behind the four projects failed to respond to Verra’s requests, leaving it unclear whether the credits will ever be replaced.
Verra’s rules in the spotlight
A Verra spokesperson told Climate Home News that the account holder, “which requested to remain anonymous”, asked the registry to cancel those credits and, subsequently, Verra decided to count them towards the compensation process for the other 10 sham projects.
While Climate Home News could not verify the identity of the account holder in question, Shell declared in public filings that, in 2024, it had marketed those 960,000 credits to potential buyers.
Verra said its rules allow any active credits to be used to cover excess issuance elsewhere, even if those credits themselves need to be replaced. Commenting on this specific case involving the sham rice-farming projects, the spokesperson added: “While the source projects have been rejected and must address their own over-issuance, the credits used here were valid at the time of cancellation.”
Grayson Badgley, a research scientist at climate solutions non-profit CarbonPlan, said this sort of logic might allow Verra to balance its credit ledger but does nothing to help the planet’s atmosphere. “This isn’t just about following the rules – it’s about making sure that the carbon market supports meaningful climate action,” he added.
Compensation orders piling up
Carbon market experts told Climate Home News the case raises serious questions about Verra’s ability to safeguard the integrity of its carbon credits at a critical time when a rapidly growing number of bogus offsets require compensation.
Over 10 million worthless credits produced by the discredited Kariba forest protection megaproject in Zimbabwe, and already used by corporations to back up their green claims, need to be replaced after Verra found the threat to the forest had been exaggerated in the project’s original forecast.
Zimbabwe forest carbon megaproject generated millions of junk credits
In a separate development, Verra is now also seeking the compensation of around 4.5 million credits issued by four vast tree-planting schemes in China. The registry axed the projects last Friday after a year-long review failed to confirm they had been approved by government authorities – a key requirement – and that official documentation had not been falsified.
Shell tied to failed tree-planting schemes
While a Chinese company was in charge of the projects’ implementation, official documents show that, for years, Shell had been directly involved as an “authorised representative”. This role, which the energy giant also held in the rice paddy schemes, gave the firm all the “applicable rights and responsibilities” in relation to the activities.
Shell exited all four tree-planting projects in December 2024, a month after Verra informed the firm it would start the investigation that ultimately led to their cancellation last week.
“We purchase and retire a range of Verra-certified credits and were disappointed to learn of the issues Verra identified with these projects and are looking at Verra to replace any credits that were issued under these projects,” a Shell spokesperson told Climate Home News.
For Carbon Market Watch’s Crook, Verra’s unwillingness to deal with “huge loopholes” is not only deeply troubling but also counterproductive as it undermines trust in the registry, while leaving it exposed to future misconduct by unscrupulous actors.
“Rather than take real accountability for this scandal, Verra seems intent on propping up a collapsing house of cards,” he added, referring to the compensation of rice-farming credits.
The post “House of cards”: Verra used junk carbon credits to fix Shell’s offsetting scandal appeared first on Climate Home News.
“House of cards”: Verra used junk carbon credits to fix Shell’s offsetting scandal
The holidays are here again. ‘Tis the season to hang out with (or just tolerate) family and friends, share (and maybe overindulge in) tasty meals, and enjoy festivities (or stay cozy and binge your comfort show). But no matter how you celebrate, the pressure to consume can be extreme.
Capitalism’s overconsumption machine can make us think that we need to buy everything during the holidays, but as corporations pump out 430 million tonnes of plastic globally, plastic doesn’t need to get the invite to the big holiday party this year. Dodging certain holiday offerings and embracing some new anti-consumption traditions can be small but mighty acts of resistance against capitalism.
Plastic is everywhere, and at this time of year it’s hiding in plain sight at your holiday gatherings. Plastic packaging is the most obvious major source of waste; however, a closer look at what many decorations and gifts are made of reveals all the other ways plastic creeps into our homes. It is in clothing, bags, bedding, childrens’ toys, holiday figurines, electronics, sports equipment, stuffed animals, cosmetics, kitchenware, furniture, the stir stick in your cocktail or mocktail — the list goes on.
Why does this matter? Because plastic pollutes air, water, nature and our bodies, across its entire lifecycle. And it’s causing widespread and devastating harm. Plastic isn’t only a waste and pollution issue, it has morphed into a grave public health concern. The more plastic the industry produces, the more we’re pressured to consume, and the more pollution people and the planet are exposed to.
5 Ways to reduce plastic waste and pollution during Christmas
The season of giving doesn’t have to be giving plastic disaster. We’re here to share 5 ways to beat those consumption blues.
1. Normalize ‘new-to-you’ over brand new gifts.
It’s never been easier to find pre-loved items in our communities. From thrift shops to antique stores, clothing swaps to flea markets, and numerous online platforms, most gift ideas you have can be found used with a bit of time and resourcefulness. Dodging big corps whenever possible isn’t only satisfying, it’s a win for your wallet and the planet. According to Earth Overshoot Day and its partners, by July 24th, 2025 humanity was using nature about 1.8 times faster than the Earth’s ecosystems are able to regenerate, so reducing demand for new materials is part of our collective consumption reduction equation. If you look at the plastic all around you today, it is set to have more than doubled in the next 25 years.
Any signal we can send to big plastic producers and consumer goods companies that plastic isn’t fantastic, can help incentivize them to choose alternatives, and show governments that we support real solutions to the plastic problem.
2. Choose your containers and cookware with care
It’s a lovely time of year for meals out and coffee dates but because non-toxic, reusable containers are not yet ubiquitous, bringing your own plastic-free containers whenever possible will reduce your plastic exposure and footprint. Plastic-lined coffee cups, “bioplastic” packaging and cutlery, and even take-out containers labeled as reusable, present an opportunity for contaminating our food and our bodies with microplastics and chemicals. Various kitchenware items in our homes also contain plastic. Large plastic spatulas and spoons, sieves and strainers, cutting boards, storage containers, sippy cups, electric kettles, blenders and Teflon or coated pans all can contain or are made from plastic. Scientists have begun to uncover how using these types of items contributes to our ingestion of microplastics and exposure to potentially toxic chemicals. There’s nothing festive about a charcuterie board seasoned with microplastics.
It’s not easy or affordable to do a full kitchen overhaul, but you can start by doing small changes like ditching plastic cutting boards, never heating plastic, and using stainless steel or cast iron instead of coated pots and pans. When hosting, remember reusable is best — ditch the single-use plates, cups, and cutlery and just use what you have on hand. Crowd source dishware when needed, that’s what friends are for.
3. Glitter isn’t glam, your inner sparkle is enough!
Who doesn’t want a little glitz at this time of year? So much of what is extra sparkly and shiny is a combination of plastic and metal, and it’s nothing but a beautiful nightmare. Glitter shows up in craft supplies, gift wrap, decorations, clothing, cosmetics, kids’ toys, costumes, party hats, and snow globes. Plastic glitter and sequins can easily shed into its surroundings, when clothing is being washed or crafts are being cleaned-up, it can shed down the drain, and when combined with paper or other materials, these products ruin recycling potential, sending them to landfill or incineration. And while some may claim to be biodegradable, it’s really not worth the potential pollution risk.
4. Resist the urge to purge
Out with the old and in with the new can be a useful mantra when letting go of negative vibes or questionable habits, but when it comes to “stuff”, we all need to resist the temptation to get the newer, trendier, or upgraded item. We live in an era where we’re being given mixed messages about simplifying our lives and our relationship with material things. We’re told to buy more, but also buy better. Wide leg jeans today, skinny jeans tomorrow. But purging in the name of decluttering isn’t an act for the planet. It can also overburden donation organizations. Unless the purge is paired with a commitment to minimalist living, chances are a lot of that stuff will eventually be replaced, increasing the resource burden. Buying a bunch of new stuff can result in a bunch more plastic produced, so try to ponder before you purge and consider what might be reused, refurbished, remanufactured, revived, refurnished, repurposed, remade, regifted, rotated out, rotated in, rearranged, reimagined, and/or relocated.
5. Cozy up with a petition to change the world.
Trying to dodge plastic can be exhausting. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you’re not alone. We can only do so much in this broken plastic-obsessed system. Plastic producers and polluters need to be held accountable, and governments need to act faster to protect the health of people and the planet. The plastic crisis is a global problem demanding a global solution. We urgently need global governments to secure a strong UN Global Plastics Treaty that reduces global production and consumption, ends our reliance on problem plastics and chemicals, and accelerates a justice-centred transition to a reuse-based, zero waste future. Ensure your government doesn’t waste this once-in-a-generation opportunity to end the age of plastic. Sign our petition!
Climate Change
After Hurricane Katrina, a New Orleans Architect Turned to the Dutch to Learn to Live With Water
Before the storm, the city tried to engineer water out of sight. But, David Waggonner says, “you can’t live with water if you can’t see water.”
For years, David Waggonner designed courthouses and other public buildings at his architectural practice, Waggonner & Ball, in New Orleans. Then Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, and Waggonner became convinced that New Orleans was getting something fundamentally wrong about its approach to flooding and water.
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