Microsoft & BP's "Carbon Offset" Forests Are Burning Down In PNW Fires, So Now What?
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Fires ignited by lightning in July swept through the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington, prompting evacuations and damaging a project that BP buys offsets from. With some areas still burning, the extent of the damage is unknown.
The offset programs carry a “buffer” of credits that are not sold to any companies but are available to cover any shortfalls resulting from problems with a project. The Colville project has generated more than 14 million credits since 2016, about 5 million of which have been used by buyers, according to data compiled by the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project. BP alone bought 13 million offsets from the Colville project in a transaction valued at more than $100 million, according to the Washington Department of Natural Resources.
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In Oregon, the Bootleg fire near Klamath Falls has caused widespread devastation, and burnt through part of a project, Klamath East, that provided Microsoft with offsets. “Since the Bootleg fire started, we have had all hands on deck fighting the fire. It will be weeks before we can get in to assess damage,” said Patti Case, a spokesperson for the forestry group Green Diamond Resource Company, which developed the scheme covering Klamath.
Overall, Klamath East has generated nearly 800,000 offsets since 2017, about 140,000 of which have been used by buyers. Microsoft bought a combined 240,000 offsets from Klamath East and Klamath West last year. The tech giant was assessing how the disaster might affect how it buys offsets in future, Willmott said at the Carbon180 event. “We don’t want this to force us to pull out of investing in nature-based solutions,” she said. Instead, buyers must “get really smart about what the risks are.”
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Both the Klamath East and Colville projects are registered with the American Carbon Registry, and were approved by the California Air Resources Board to be used in the state’s carbon trading system. The American Carbon Registry said the California system’s buffer pool was “robust and diversified, with a volume of credits contributed to date of around 30 million tons from 143 forestry projects in 29 states.” The U.S. emitted roughly 6.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents in 2019.
Ed. - Emphasis added.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04082021/us-forest-fires-threaten-carbon-offsets-as-company-linked-trees-burn/