Oil and gas giant Shell is counting discredited carbon credits towards its climate goals, drawing accusations of “bad faith” and “malintent”.
Last month, Shell used rice farming carbon credits to offset a chunk of its annual emissions, claiming to reduce the “carbon intensity” of its fossil fuel products.
But experts have long argued that the sellers of these offsets are over-counting their emissions reductions and using accounting tricks to evade checks, as a Climate Home investigation showed last year.
These accusations led leading carbon standard Verra to suspend the projects early last year and launch an investigation. Shell took them off its website as a result.
But, although Verra’s review continues, on January 9 Shell quietly retired over a million credits produced by the suspended projects, meaning it counts the claimed emissions reductions towards its climate targets.
Rachel Rose Jackson, director of climate policy at Corporate Accountability, said Shell’s actions were “shameful, dubious and reckless against the backdrop of a deadly climate emergency”.
“To retire over one million offsets from projects actively under investigation reeks of bad faith and malintent”, she added.
Carbon Market Watch’s Jonathan Crook said Shell should have at least waited until Verra’s review had ended to see if there were problems with the offsets.
If the offsets do have problems then, he added, they “have no value from a climate perspective and using them towards net carbon intensity targets is totally inappropriate”.
Shell did not reply to detailed questions on these particular offsets. But a spokesperson said that the credits the company buys are “certified in accordance with independent standards and further screened through our due diligence process”.
Claiming to lower rice emissions
The idea behind the projects is that emitters like Shell pay for Chinese rice farmers to take measures to reduce their emissions that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford.
Rice is traditionally grown in flooded fields known as paddies. These have more bacteria than dry fields and the bacteria breaks down decaying plants, turning them into a potent greenhouse gas called methane.
To reduce the damage to the climate and save water, the project developers claimed they would pay farmers to periodically drain their fields. With less standing water, there are fewer bacteria and less methane.
A rice field irrigated with alternate wetting and drying methods
But opinions from experts and scientific literature suggest that lots of farmers already employ this technique across China, encouraged by the central government. So they do not need incentives from carbon credit to do so.
Carbon credit rating agency BeZero Carbon has given a Chinese rice cultivation project similar to Shell’s its lowest possible score.
Its assessment says there is a “significant risk” that the emissions reduction measures are not additional to what would happen without the carbon credit money “due to the high level of government support for the project activities”.
A Climate Home investigation last year found that the project developers artificially divided up fields across several projects to pass them off as small-scale and avoid stricter checks.
Quality issues
These activities were initially given the green light by leading carbon standard Verra. But early last year, in response to concerns, it identified “quality issues”, launched a review and stopped the projects from producing any more credits.
But the suspension did not prevent offsets already in circulation from being sold or used to offset emissions.
When Climate Home approached Shell last year, the company said it was aware of Verra’s review and “would look carefully at the results when they are published”.
The company took the offsets off a webpage dedicated to its portfolio of carbon credits offered to external clients, with a spokesperson saying this was “pending Verra’s review”.
Nearly a year later, the results of the review have still not been published and the projects remain on hold. But Shell retired 1.23 million carbon credits issued by those projects, offsetting emissions equivalent to three gas-fired power plants running for a year.
A Shell spokesperson said the company had “recently retired a number of carbon credits as part of our net carbon intensity target”.
Finding a way out
Shell’s involvement in these projects is not just as a buyer. The schemes were originally set up by a Chinese firm but four years later Shell signed a series of agreements to become its exclusive agent.
The role granted Shell the right to either claim the credits against its emissions or sell them to other companies, potentially profiting from their sale.
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Before Verra suspended the projects, only a quarter of the credits issued by the projects had been used, primarily by Chinese state-owned oil company PetroChina.
Shell retired the vast majority of the remaining credits on January 9. Carbon Market Watch’s Crook says it would appear Shell “had sunk money into the projects and had these credits sitting on their books”.
“Perhaps they have not been able to find any buyers since the projects were put on hold”, he added. “Or perhaps they are doubting that the review will be positive and it will be difficult to sell or trade any of these credits in the future. So they went ahead and used them themselves”.
Shell involved in rule-making
While Verra probes the credits, it has taken the rare step of banning any further use of the rice farming methodology under which the projects were developed.
The register is now working on a new rulebook for future rice farming offsets. It says it will allow project developers “to credibly achieve emission reductions and generate high-quality credits”.
To advise them on this, Verra has appointed an Indian company which is part of Shell, raising concerns about conflict of interests.
Crook described this as a “recurring issue” in the carbon credit world. He said: “You have actors who wear all these different hats. They can sometimes develop methodologies, transact carbon credits and/or use them towards their own targets, potentially based on rules they helped develop. It raises real questions around conflicts of interest and integrity.”
A Shell petrol station. Photo credit: Tomcat MTL/Flickr
A Verra spokesperson told Climate Home it “takes potential and actual conflicts of interest very seriously” and that methodologies “undergo an extensive review process before they are finalised” and at each stage “all stakeholders, including the public, have an opportunity to evaluate and comment”.
They said: “This process is designed to promptly identify any issues with the methodology, including the opportunity to identify any perceived conflicts of interest”.
Investigation ongoing
The spokesperson said Verra does not comment on specific projects under review to avoid influencing the outcome of the investigation.
“The steps in a review, as well as the timeline for completing the review, depend on the underlying facts and circumstances, the complexity of the issues, the cooperation of third parties and other factors”, they said.
“A review may take several weeks or months to complete,” they added, “while every review is different, Verra aims to conduct an appropriately scoped review as expeditiously as possible.”
A spokesperson for Shell said: “We retire credits to compensate emissions, including those associated with the energy our customers use in transport, homes, producing goods and providing services. This approach complements our activities to avoid and reduce emissions from our own operations”.
The post “Shameful”: Shell uses carbon credits under investigation to meet climate targets appeared first on Climate Home News.
“Shameful”: Shell uses carbon credits under investigation to meet climate targets
An Lambrechts is a biodiversity politics expert at Greenpeace International with extensive experience in biodiversity-related multilateral negotiations. She is the head of the Greenpeace delegation at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP17 happening in Yerevan, Armenia.
In 2022, COP15 delivered the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. With COP17 starting in Yerevan, we are now halfway to the deadline, and according to the first Global Review of progress, countries are not on track to meet the biodiversity targets, and implementation must accelerate fast.
One of the main findings of the Global Review is that funding falls far short of the scale needed to halt and reverse nature loss. But the crisis facing the world’s biodiversity is not an absolute scarcity of capital – it is a profound public policy distortion.
The global economy currently spends roughly $30 destroying nature for every single dollar invested in its protection. According to a report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, a staggering $2.4 trillion is spent in public subsidies for fossil fuels, agriculture and water use, while global investment in biodiversity conservation and restoration stands at a mere $220 billion.
Countries urged to ramp up “insufficient” nature policies at COP17
Yet, discussions about how to close the biodiversity finance gap continue to claim that salvation lies in mobilising private capital, scaling offsets and “derisking” investments in nature. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of both the nature of ecological stewardship and of the global financial architecture.
Biodiversity conservation is not a speculative investment portfolio – it is the foundation of human survival. The health of our planet is a non-monetisable, non-excludable public good. Expecting profit-seeking private capital to protect nature perpetuates the structural drivers of ecosystem destruction in the first place.
But if private market mechanisms cannot save biodiversity, where will the necessary public resources come from?
Money going to the wrong places
The answer lies in recovering the vast public wealth currently drained by cross-border tax abuse, financial secrecy and corporate impunity. Finance and environment ministers meeting in Yerevan must give a strong political signal that, to avert ecological breakdown, countries need to take swift action to reform global tax rules, eliminate harmful public subsidies and cancel unsustainable sovereign debts for the public revenues to end up where they belong.
Extractive sectors such as industrial agriculture, fishing, timber and mining continue business-as-usual, often heavily subsidised by public treasuries, while voluntary carbon and biodiversity offset markets pose a serious risk to nature conservation. Offset schemes have delivered only a negligible fraction of the funding needed to preserve ecosystems, allowing industries to continue with their destructive business-as-usual practices.
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In advanced economies, public funding often actively undermines biodiversity. In Europe, over €5.3 billion in public subsidies is funnelled annually into intensive forest biomass harvesting under renewable energy directives, degrading primary forest ecosystems and undermining long-term climate resilience. Pleading with private investors to fill a “finance gap” while pouring billions into ecological destruction is an exercise in futility.
Developing countries struggle with debt burden
For developing countries, reliance on private finance is further compounded by a crushing sovereign debt crisis. In 2024, public debt in developing economies reached record levels, with net interest payments alone absorbing $921 billion. A record 61 developing countries now spend more than 10% of government revenue on foreign debt service, with many climate-vulnerable nations spending twice as much servicing external debt as they receive in climate and biodiversity finance combined.
This burden acts as a structural driver of ecosystem destruction. Under pressure from external creditors and international financial institutions to avoid default and secure foreign exchange, governments are routinely forced into austerity measures and pushed to expand raw commodity exports into pristine biomes.
Comment: World Bank and IMF should lead the financial system in responding to the climate crisis
The current negotiations for a United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (UNFCITC) also offer a way forward. An estimated $492 billion in tax revenue is lost every year to offshore tax havens. Multinational corporations account for around $348 billion of this total by shifting profits away from the countries where real economic extraction and environmental degradation occur.
In the mining sector alone, developing nations lose tens of billions annually to corporate tax dodging. Furthermore, international financial secrecy shields environmental criminals, with illicit financial flows from illegal logging draining between $51 billion and $152 billion annually.
At COP17, leaders must seize the opportunity to build a bridge between the two conventions and enhance cooperation. Governments must put the world on a firm path to securing predictable, sufficient, sovereign public finance for biodiversity conservation. It’s the only path to a restorative, rights-based future for people and the planet.
The post Protecting nature is a public duty, not a Wall Street profit opportunity appeared first on Climate Home News.
Protecting nature is a public duty, not a Wall Street profit opportunity
Climate Change
Greenpeace delivers 47 metre-long petition with half a million signatures to Woodside HQ following major gas protest
Greenpeace delivers 47 metre-long petition with half a million signatures to Woodside HQ following major gas protest
PERTH, Monday 19 October 2026 — Dozens of Perth community members delivered a giant petition, signed by almost half a million people, to Woodside’s corporate headquarters this morning, calling on the government to save Scott Reef from Woodside’s reckless Browse gas proposal.
Dressed in sea creature costumes and hats, supporters carried one of Australia’s biggest environmental petitions to Woodside’s headquarters, and a local choir performed a ‘Scott Reef’ rendition of Angie McMahon’s iconic cover of ‘Reckless’ by Australian Crawl.
On the sidelines of the Perth Global Citizen Now event, it comes following a two day-long protest at Woodside’s Scarborough gas platform that saw activists scale and occupy the Floating Production Unit calling to “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas” and “Save Scott Reef”. The activists were taken from the platform by police helicopter on Sunday afternoon.
David Ritter, CEO at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “Less than a day after two Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists were arrested for their peaceful protest at Woodside’s Scarborough gas platform to save Scott Reef, we are here again with another message to Woodside: half a million of us do not want your dirty gas at Scott Reef.
“Community pressure on Woodside is rising. Today we are here to show Woodside that they can’t ignore half a million people who want Scott Reef protected, not turned into an industrialised gas zone.
“Woodside can’t be trusted with our oceans. Woodside’s plans to drill up to 57 toxic wells at Scott Reef, Australia’s largest oceanic reef, putting endangered pygmy blue whales at risk, and jeopardising a nesting ground for unique green sea turtles.
“We Australians love our oceans and this is an opportunity for our governments to do the right thing, to reject Woodside’s reckless drilling plans, and save Scott Reef.”
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Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or Emma Sangalli on +61 431 513 465
Climate Change
Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists in police custody after two-day protest against Woodside’s Browse gas project at Scott Reef
PERTH, Sunday 18 October 2026 — Two Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists are in police custody after occupying a gas platform at Woodside’s Scarborough gas project, in peaceful protest of the fossil fuel corporation’s plans to drill for oil and gas at Scott Reef.
NEW footage and photos of the peaceful protest available here and on Instagram
The activists used specialised climbing equipment to scale and attach themselves to a Floating Production Unit (FPU), a key piece of gas processing infrastructure at the Scarborough gas field over 200km off the coast of Exmouth, at around 05:45am AWST on Saturday and proceeded to occupy the platform for two days, displaying banners reading “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas. Save Scott Reef.”
Special police forces landed a helicopter on the FPU at around 11:30am AWST. The activists safely removed themselves from their equipment before being taken into police custody around 1:00pm AWST. At the time of writing, no charges have been laid.
David Ritter, CEO at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “It takes guts and conviction to do what our activists have done, peacefully protesting Woodside’s reckless gas plans at Scott Reef.
“Woodside’s plans to drill up to 57 toxic wells at Scott Reef are outrageous. If allowed to go ahead Woodside would turn Scott Reef, Australia’s largest oceanic reef, home to nesting green sea turtles and elusive pygmy blue whales, into an industrial gas zone. Around half a million people have called on our governments to stop Woodside and to save Scott Reef.
“Our activists are highly trained and experienced in these activities. West Australia has a proud history of peaceful, democratic protest at sea, to protect our oceans from environmental threats. From whaling in Albany in the seventies, to Woodside’s threat to Scott Reef today, there’s more than fifty years of history, of Greenpeace taking action off WA’s coast to protect the places we love.
“Peaceful protest has long been part of what has given us so many of the things that are great about Australia and is part of the fabric of our democracy and our national identity.”
“The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to a healthy democracy. From Australia to the Arctic and the Amazon, Greenpeace has been peacefully protesting for more than 50 years to expose the biggest environmental threats around the world. We will not be silenced by corporations like Woodside who actively try to stop everyday people from speaking out against their reckless plans.
“Woodside’s reckless proposal to drill at Scott Reef is an unacceptable risk to Scott Reef and to the climate, which our government should emphatically reject.”
Speaking from the Rainbow Warrior, Captain of the Rainbow Warrior Hettie Geenen, said:
“It felt powerful watching from the Rainbow Warrior as these brave activists scaled Woodside’s enormous and imposing gas infrastructure, which has no place at Scott Reef. We are all out here because we feel an urge to act, in the face of Woodside’s grave threat to Scott Reef and to our climate. Now we ask for the Australian government to act too, and reject Woodside’s reckless Browse project.
“Just before this peaceful protest, the Rainbow Warrior sailed to Scott Reef, where our whole crew got to witness the magic of an untouched, healthy reef ecosystem full of marine life. It was my second time visiting Scott Reef with the Rainbow Warrior. When you see Scott Reef up close and witness its magic first hand, it is impossible not to feel driven to try and protect it.”
The activists sailed to Scarborough on the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace’s flagship vessel, which is in the region campaigning to protect Australia’s oceans, including Scott Reef.
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Media contact
Greenpeace Australia Pacific media team in Perth on +61 406 231 892 or +61 407 581 404 or email media.au@greenpeace.org
