{"id":49049,"date":"2023-08-25T04:00:52","date_gmt":"2023-08-25T03:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/?p=49049"},"modified":"2023-09-07T15:09:21","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T14:09:21","slug":"cookstove-offsets-carbon-emissions-credits-india-enking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2023\/08\/25\/cookstove-offsets-carbon-emissions-credits-india-enking\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooking the books: cookstove offsets produce millions of fake emission cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abdul Nalband, head of Machutar village in western India, received shiny new cooking stoves for his community over a decade ago<\/span><\/b>. Offered as a replacement for their traditional mud stoves, the <\/span><\/b>cast iron<\/span><\/b> devices promised to make cooking rice and rotis – the staple of the villagers’ diet – more efficient<\/span><\/b>.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0Yet<\/span><\/b> the<\/span><\/b> stoves<\/span><\/b>, as in <\/span><\/b>the<\/span><\/b> case<\/span><\/b> of<\/span><\/b> most<\/span><\/b> of<\/span><\/b> his<\/span><\/b> neighbou<\/span><\/b>r<\/span><\/b>s<\/span><\/b>,<\/span><\/b> quickly stopped working.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Machutar is one of the several dozens of villages across the Maharashtra state where the distribution of new stoves fuelled the production of carbon credits that are still being sold to big polluters today.<\/p>\n

Nalband was told the new equipment would <\/span>consume <\/span>less<\/span> of<\/span> the<\/span> firewood<\/span> sourced from nearby trees<\/span>\u00a0as fuel. <\/span> For<\/span> villagers,<\/span> this<\/span> would<\/span> mean <\/span>fewer<\/span> harvesting<\/span> trips<\/span>, supposedly<\/span> bring<\/span>ing<\/span> climate benefits in the process.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But, as Abdul Nalband recalls now, \u201cthe stoves broke down soon due to rusting and nobody came to follow up or repair them\u201d. Machutar villagers reverted to cooking with <\/span>traditional<\/span> stoves, while the few able to afford it gradually switched to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Machutar\u2019s <\/span>experience is far from unique. <\/span>Hundreds of carbon<\/span> offsetting<\/span> projects<\/span> distributed so-called improved cookstoves across India, and other developing countries, over the last decade. As 2.4 billion people<\/a> across the world still cook with highly polluting fuels, giving them access to more efficient firewood stoves can aid the transition to clean cooking.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, experts suggest the climate benefits from a significant proportion of these projects have been severely overestimated. <\/span>They <\/span>say<\/span><\/a> that lax rules, overinflated estimates and poor monitoring have likely created a flood of poor quality offsets linked to the cooking devices.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Climate Home News analysed improved cookstove projects linked to one of the most active players in the sector: Enking, an Indian firm that <\/span>claims<\/span><\/a> to be the world\u2019s biggest carbon offsetter. <\/span>It <\/span>found that the projects are likely overstating emissions reductions by as much as eight times. Buyers of these offsets include top polluters like oil giant Shell.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n