{"id":49942,"date":"2024-02-02T11:23:11","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T11:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/?p=49942"},"modified":"2024-02-02T13:31:18","modified_gmt":"2024-02-02T13:31:18","slug":"shameful-shell-uses-carbon-credits-under-investigation-to-meet-climate-targets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2024\/02\/02\/shameful-shell-uses-carbon-credits-under-investigation-to-meet-climate-targets\/","title":{"rendered":"“Shameful”: Shell uses carbon credits under investigation to meet climate targets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oil and gas giant Shell is counting discredited carbon credits towards its climate goals, drawing accusations of \u201cbad faith\u201d and \u201cmalintent\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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. <\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a> last year.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rachel Rose Jackson, director of climate policy at Corporate Accountability, said Shell\u2019s actions were \u201cshameful, dubious and reckless against the backdrop of a deadly climate emergency\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo retire over one million offsets from projects actively under investigation reeks of bad faith and malintent\u201d, she added.<\/span><\/p>\n