Green Commitment Or Greenwashing?

Since last year, Shell has been offering European motorists “carbon neutral” driving and recently Total announced that it is now selling “carbon neutral” liquified natural gas. Are the fossil fuel giants going green? No, we are not talking about electric car charging stations or renewable fuels. Both Shell and Total are buying carbon credits from offset (including forestry) projects to compensate for the continued use of climate heating fossil fuels. Companies around the world are announcing climate pledges, which is certainly welcome. But we don’t necessarily know what lies behind the “climate-neutrality” claims. The pledges usually include offsetting, and often through forestry credits. Forests must be protected, but they cannot be used as an excuse to continue polluting. Companies should focus on counting and reporting on their emissions, and reducing them as much as they can. On top of that, more funding for projects that protect forests and boost biodiversity is urgently needed. But the two should not be mixed.

The European Commission has published its final guidelines for providing state aid to heavy industry to compensate for higher electricity prices due to the power sector having to buy emission allowances from the EU carbon market. This is called indirect cost compensation, basically a subsidy scheme for industries. In a telling example of industry influence on policymakers, the final rules have been significantly watered down from a draft version. New sectors such as oil refineries and plastic producers have been added onto the list and climate conditions have been either weakened or completely dropped. Making access to public support conditional on reducing emissions could trigger some of the necessary investments into a clean transition of European industry. In their current form, these rules simply award the highly polluting status quo. EU governments should refrain from using this scheme; the billions worth of taxpayer money to be shovelled into the industry coffers would be much better spent on climate action that benefits society at large.

To the newsletter

Author

Related posts

EU’s 2040 credit line risks bankrupting the climate

The inclusion of flawed carbon credits in any compliance or voluntary market – particularly within the EU’s 2040 climate architecture – would pose a serious risk to environmental integrity. If the EU allows these credits to count towards its legally binding climate targets, it will effectively undermine real domestic mitigation by replacing it with credits that exist only on paper.

First wave of Article 6 carbon credits misfire spectacularly

A new Carbon Market Watch analysis, based on currently available project data, has uncovered that the first project transitioning from the CDM to the Article 6.4 market is poised to issue an astonishing 27.4 times more credits than it should as compared to the values from peer-reviewed scientific literature.

There can be no flexibility in the EU’s 2040 climate target

Apparently, EU lawmakers are exploring four potential loopholes to weaken the target under the guise of “greater flexibility”. Under consideration are suggestions that include postponing climate action until the latter half of the 2030’s, allowing for more flexibility between EU sectors, or relying on international offsets and additional carbon removals to somehow fill the gap caused by EU inaction. 

Civil society must be included in EU policymaking

Carbon Market Watch and 550 civil society organisations from 40 countries are today joining forces to fight back against ongoing attacks against NGOs from centre-right and far-right political voices.

Join our mailing list

Stay in touch and receive our monthly newsletter, campaign updates, event invites and more.