Original subtitles

Did you know that BA's domestic flights are all carbon neutral?

Well, that's fantastic.

Better for the environment, I guess.

Did you know that your flight here from Manchester to London

is carbon neutral?

That's a positive, I would say.

Even some of the biggest polluters

like to say they're doing their bit for the environment.

Shell has a target

to become a net zero emissions energy business by 2050.

But do these claims add up?

You have this massive activity,

with companies trying to brandish their green credentials,

claiming that they're net zero, that they're low-carbon,

that you can trust them.

We investigate an industry

that claims it can help companies cancel out their carbon pollution.

With our project, we protect trees, right?

The trees keep absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

We reveal all is not what it seems

with some of these environmental projects.

And we speak to industry insiders.

At the time it was exciting, it was the future, you know?

Now, 20 years later, it's like...

Sorry, kids. I tried my best, no?

With global temperatures rising,

are some of the world's biggest brands doing enough

to help fight climate change?

Companies want us to buy their stuff,

and for us to think that, therefore,

we somehow are contributing to solve the climate crisis.

Sorry, but that's just bullshit.

The heatwave is continuing across much of Europe today,

with the UK hitting its hottest temperature on record.

Temperatures topped 40 Celsius for the first time ever here.

It was the hottest day. I've never known temperatures like it.

My son, he was in his shorts and he had flip-flops on.

The boys were sunburned, they'd been out in the sun all day.

Probably about sort of, like, 12:55, 12:50,

my son came in and said, like,

"There's a fire in next door's garden."

So I put my hosepipe on, got on the roof...

The smoke was getting horrendous then.

I had a privet hedge down there, and it was gone in seconds.

It went, "fwoosh", and it was gone, like.

The sky was black. You couldn't see anything. It was so dark.

The London Fire Brigade has declared a major incident

in response to a surge in fires across the capital.

And then I see this massive big fireball,

then it spread across the field.

41 houses went down in London that day.

The Fire Brigade says it doesn't know exactly how the fire started

but says it spread quickly because of the extreme heat.

I couldn't calm down for two or three days, you know.

And it's not until you finally sit in a chair

and then you realise, everything's gone, like, you know?

And when you lose everything, you lose everything, like, you know.

It was home, and...

I'd have liked to see my days out here, really, you know,

but there you go. That's what it is, and that's...

That's the rubble we're left with now, like, you know.

We would never have reached 40 degrees in the UK

without climate change.

We will see more and more heatwaves like this,

and they will get hotter and hotter

the more fossil fuels we burn.

The following year, 2023,

was the hottest around the world since records began.

Climate change is impacting our lives in all sorts of ways.

This is only going to get worse.

And, of course, heatwaves are not the only dangers.

Extreme weather events.

A warm atmosphere can hold more water vapour.

That comes out as heavy rainfall.

Our societies are built on hundreds of years of very stable weather,

and now we've shifted the weather very quickly to be quite different.

So this is not a problem of the future.

This is happening already, here and now.

Climate change is the most fundamental

and existential threat to our species.

The consequences are unthinkable, and worse,

it has the potential to make our planet unliveable.

Enough is enough.

We must act and we must all act now.

APPLAUSE

World leaders agreed a global action plan.

L'accord de Paris sur le climat est accepte.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

For the first time, the governments of the world have a plan

to reduce climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.

After two decades of trying, the agreement is here.

The aim - to limit the increase in the average global temperature

to well below two degrees Celsius since preindustrial levels.

To achieve this,

countries would need to drastically reduce their carbon emissions,

and, by 2050, stop adding to the overall amount

of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The target became known as net zero.

In theory, net zero makes total sense.

The problem is, we are very good at putting carbon in the atmosphere,

but we don't actually have any technology

to get a lot of carbon out of the atmosphere.

What do we want?

CROWD: Climate justice!

When do we want it? Now!

Climate justice! Climate justice now!

More than 170 countries signed the Paris agreement.

Get your hands off me!

Protests ramped up around the world, calling for faster action,

not only from governments but business, too.

Right, how are we doing? We're good.

Hair good, body good, face good? Yes. Looking great.

After the Paris climate conference,

companies are under pressure from governments,

governments are under pressure from people,

to do something about carbon and climate.

So companies wanted to take action.

But to do that, business and industry have to change,

and reduce the amount of carbon that's being produced.

Companies hit this realisation

that it's really tough. It's very hard.

That's when suddenly you saw kind of the boom in carbon credits.

So, what are carbon credits?

There are lots of different types.

The most popular are called avoided deforestation credits,

and they work like this.

Carbon credit developers take on the job of protecting a forest.

Because it's protected,

the forest can carry on doing its job of absorbing and storing carbon.

Each tonne of carbon stored in these trees

is worth one credit that developers can then sell.

And this is how they work for the companies buying them.

First, they calculate how much pollution they're producing.

Next, they should cut their emissions.

Then they can buy carbon credits

to help them cancel out the pollution that's left.

What we are doing with credits is we're saying,

"I want to help someone in another part of the world

"reduce or remove carbon."

In principle, that's a very good thing.

But if you're using that credit generated

to offset your own emissions,

to say, "I'm going to pay someone else to remove or reduce,"

then that's a very different thing.

BIRDSONG

Amazing, um...birdsong.

This is where one of the biggest carbon credit projects began.

Kasigau, home to a company called Wildlife Works.

It says it has a mission to protect trees and wildlife

across around 200,000 hectares.

OK, how long have you been working here? Two years.

I'm the executive office coordinator.

When we visit the company, we meet Patricia Kanyang'onda.

We ask her to show us around and explain how the project works.

So what happens is, with our project, we protect trees, right.

The trees keep absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

So we generate carbon credits.

She says not only do the trees benefit, but local people do, too.

There's been so much done for the community.

We've done a kitchen, we've done toilets, we've given bursaries.

The thing about Wildlife Works is the impact...

..yeah, it's the impact on the community is...

..is amazing.

This entire place would have been destroyed.

There was poaching, there was slash and burn agriculture.

Mike Korchinsky, the founder,

I think he's a very smart person.

So it was a very crucial area to focus on,

and that's why he chose it.

I could see that this was a massive challenge.

How do people and wildlife find a way to coexist,

using the same resources?

Mike Korchinsky first came to Kenya on a safari holiday in 1997,

and never looked back.

The seeds for changing my life

happened on that vacation, in Africa.

Stopping the loss of natural forest

is by far the most effective way to slow climate change.

He loved it so much he stayed and started a conservation project.

Wildlife Works was born.

The name Wildlife Works, which is the name of our company,

came up during that trip.

If you want wildlife in the future,

you have to find a way to make it work for those people,

because it's their land.

Three years later, Mike Korchinsky became the majority shareholder

in one of the biggest ranches in the area.

He says, before then,

it had been agreed that people living there would leave,

but when the time came, some didn't want to.

They are called the Waduruma.

They are mostly farmers,

but earn extra money by making charcoal from burning trees.

They were evicted by the police and bailiffs

after the ranch Mike Korchinsky had bought into

went to the Kenyan High Court.

Wildlife Works rangers, including Samuel Eregai,

were there when the evictions took place.

Samuel Eregai says there WERE fires,

but they hadn't been started deliberately.

And how did you feel about it?

Wildlife Works says the company

has never forcibly evicted anyone from their homes.

Samuel Eregai stopped working for the company in 2012.

We personally believe the private sector has a very strong role

to play in the solution, in going beyond doing no harm

to actually healing the planet and solving problems.

Wildlife Works started selling carbon credits to companies

looking for ways to offset their pollution in 2011.

NGOs allowed projects like ours to be financed

by generating credits if they're protecting threatened forest.

Today, Mike Korchinsky's seen as one of the big players in the industry.

He's become a very, very influential person

in this world. He's at all of the climate Cops.

I saw him at the last biodiversity Cop in Montreal.

He's just... He's one of the big beasts of this world.

Wildlife Works now sells

almost two million credits every year from Kasigau.

The company is involved in projects

across Africa, South America

and Asia.

Last year, more than 500 million carbon credits

were sold worldwide...

..almost half of them from avoided deforestation projects.

No-one sees the world quite like an airline.

They sell to companies

looking to cancel out their carbon emissions now

and as part of their plans

to get to net zero in the future.

We envision a future of net zero emissions,

and we're optimistic about our path forward.

OVER SPEAKER: This is Liverpool Street.

There's a lot of good people who, on the most part,

are trying to do the right thing, but companies

and brands don't tend to do stuff that isn't going to give a return.

Companies definitely realise, by appearing greener, you know,

you appeal to a certain demographic, a certain audience,

and you can sell more products.

Companies drawing up plans to get to net zero

fuelled a boom in carbon credit sales.

They can be traded like commodities on international markets.

That's the gold-rush moment, when you see investors coming in,

and investment banks which have commodity trading desks,

that traditionally trade oil and gas,

start trading carbon offsets, carbon credits.

So you see more brokers coming in to buy carbon credits

and trade carbon credits and the prices going up.

As sales of carbon credits were soaring,

some scientists were having doubts.

Thales West worked in the carbon credit industry

as a consultant and auditor for ten years.

Back in the day,

I was really convinced that what was being done

was essentially the best that could be done,

and I had faith in the system! HE LAUGHS

And I was also at the same time falling in love with the idea

of doing research with science, etc,

to look at these projects and to evaluate them -

are they really achieving what they claim to be achieving?

To answer that question, Thales West became an academic.

He studied 30 carbon credit projects in six countries.

He concluded only one delivered close to the reduction

in deforestation it claimed,

and many were overstating the risk of deforestation,

resulting in too many credits being sold.

We did find some evidence

that some projects were reducing deforestation,

it's just that they were not reducing

as much deforestation as they claimed.

And that's also a problem,

because the more deforestation you avoid,

the more offsets you can sell.

At around the same time, another group of scientists

from Bangor and Cambridge Universities

were doing similar research.

Neither study had enough data

to include Wildlife Works' projects in their findings.

It's a real challenge

to be able to work out how much deforestation

would have happened in the absence of the project.

It's a genuine intellectual challenge.

So, when you buy a carbon credit,

you believe that one metric tonne of carbon has not been emitted

that would have otherwise been emitted through deforestation,

had you not bought that carbon credit.

And that's actually remarkably difficult to demonstrate.

Like Thales West, Julia Jones also looked at

how much deforestation projects were preventing.

She says the benefit of many projects was minimal,

because there was little risk

of trees being cut down in the first place.

We found these kind of forest conservation projects

have, on average, slowed deforestation.

However - and this is the big but -

there are a substantial number of projects

that are operating in places

with really quite a low background rate of deforestation,

so perhaps it's not really surprising

that there wasn't a lot of deforestation to avoid.

And therefore they haven't effectively slowed deforestation,

because there just wasn't much deforestation

going on in the area where they were occurring anyway.

If the academics were right, then there was a big problem.

If the risk to trees was being overstated,

then the environmental value of the projects would be in doubt,

along with the claims of the companies buying the credits.

It's a waste of money,

and we're also to some extent fooling ourselves.

We think we're doing something good. We are not.

And we are not investing in something that can have an actual

impact when it comes to mitigating climate change.

I wanted an answer to what the hell a carbon neutral burger was,

for example, or a carbon neutral flight or a carbon neutral whatever.

Journalist Patrick Greenfield

picked up on what these scientists were doing.

He used their research to scrutinise the environmental claims

of the companies that had bought the credits.

What we were trying to do was, very simply,

compare what real companies were using for real claims

with the findings of these studies.

When he combined the work of both studies,

he was surprised by what he found.

We very neatly ended up with a table showing over 90% of these credits

were hot air, nothing, total mirage.

To begin with, I didn't really believe it, to be honest.

That meant that many of these carbon neutrality claims

were just nonsense.

I think it really reveals something important,

which is that a lot of these offsets that have been sold

on the voluntary carbon market are essentially worthless.

The carbon credit industry now points to another study

that rebuts the earlier research.

It challenges the calculations used and says there are major flaws.

This new paper has been submitted for peer review.

The City had been keen on credits,

but after the criticism of forest credits was published,

their value collapsed.

Things had been brewing, I think, in carbon markets,

really from about 2021,

and maybe we haven't really wanted to face up to it,

that inconvenient truth

that we can't just go out and buy these things called carbon credits

and hope that we can fix the problem.

All the pricing in the market crashed.

So we were talking to brokers

who literally were saying they were getting calls every day

from developers who were willing now to sell their carbon

credit stock for £5 or £2.

And these were carbon credits that, as a single unit,

two weeks before, they were looking for £50, £30.

As prices dropped, sales rose last year.

December was a record month for companies buying carbon credits.

We're seeing companies carrying on as if nothing has happened -

and perhaps some of them are genuinely uninformed -

but many of them are therefore wilfully misleading the public

if they are making carbon neutral claims

based on credits that are in fact questionable.

BIRDSONG

In Kenya, Wildlife Works' Kasigau project

has been supported by some of the world's biggest brands.

The world now needs more energy

than ever before. At the same time...

Companies like Shell and Delta Air Lines

have bought credits from Kasigau.

..through the Paris agreement.

An example project that Shell currently works with

is the Kasigau Corridor project in Kenya.

Netflix is supporting some inspiring nature-based projects

led by partner organisations around the world

as part of its public Net Zero + Nature commitment.

Netflix has also bought credits here, almost 250,000 in 2021.

The following year, it made a promotional video

with Wildlife Works. It starts with a clip of former president

Barack Obama from another Netflix documentary.

Over time, we've created nearly a quarter of a million

protected spaces in almost every country on Earth.

Nature is so resilient if you just give it a chance.

The video showcases what Wildlife Works describes

as the project's major achievements.

This is the Kasigau Corridor Redd+ project,

run by Wildlife Works in Tsavo.

Karibu, Kasigau!

We're going to look at some of the claims in the video.

What's been particularly pioneering about this forest conservation

project is that, as well as helping the wilderness,

it focuses on investing into the community here, too.

It says Wildlife Works has made a big difference

to the lives of local women.

A key part of this project is empowering women

to take on vital roles in the community.

In our society, women are not considered anything.

We're travelling to meet a group of women

who've all been employed by Wildlife Works.

They want to speak anonymously,

because they're worried about the impact

on the community and their families.

Most were grateful for the opportunity to work.

I felt good, because having a job

was so much better than it was before.

My children were doing well in school,

and my salary was good for my family.

But these women say there was another side

to working for the company.

I was sexually harassed.

My boss tried to seduce me, and I refused.

From that day on, he started hating me.

He started doing so many things to me

that made me feel like I'm nothing.

I was about to resign, but I tried to be strong,

because if I left my job, how would I earn a living?

I have a family to take care of.

We spoke to seven women who alleged sexual harassment

dating back a decade. Six mentioned a man called Erick.

This woman says some of her colleagues felt pressured

into having sex with him.

Any worker there will tell you about Erick's behaviour.

They say if you want to survive here, you have to have sex with him.

I asked them, "What about you? Did you do the same?"

They said yes, to secure their jobs.

One woman says when she refused Erick's advances,

he touched her anyway.

It was in the compound of Wildlife Works

and, to make it worse, in the office.

He came towards the door. He peeked outside to see if anyone was coming.

There was no-one there, so he came towards me,

wanting to touch my breasts.

And he did touch my breasts.

I was a bit confused. How could it be?

I just went to my house.

Emotionally, I was tortured.

A man called Erick appears in the Netflix video.

..this wild space looked and felt very different.

Before the project was started, this area...

Erick Sagwe was Head of Security for Wildlife Works in Kasigau.

One woman says, after she refused to sleep with him,

he turned his attention to her daughter.

Erick used to send my daughter messages, saying he wanted to meet.

He wanted to sleep with her.

Me, from my side, I couldn't do it.

That's why he had a grudge against me.

Two NGOs jointly investigated the Kasigau project last year.

They found evidence of sexual harassment over years.

The project had to suspend sales of new Kasigau credits as a result.

Wildlife Works sacked two men, one of them Erick Sagwe.

He's since been edited out of the Netflix video.

Following the sackings,

the project was allowed to sell new credits again.

What was interesting in the Wildlife Works response to the report

was the attempt to deflect attention away from the company responsibility

and saying, "Oh, those were two rogue individuals."

How could that level of abuse happen for a decade

and the company not noticing?

That says a lot about the way the company was run.

Erick Sagwe says the allegations against him

are entirely baseless and without merit.

He says the allegations were orchestrated

because of his ethnicity.

Wildlife Works says as soon as it received the report,

it acted immediately. It says Mike Korchinsky has apologised

to the women directly affected and that the company has introduced

measures to guard against such misconduct happening again.

MONKEYS SHRIEK

Morning, everybody, and thanks for coming.

Seven years ago, Mike Korchinsky shared some of the secrets

of his success at a carbon credit conference.

He described his approach to getting local communities

and governments to work with his projects,

saying it's like dog training.

People and organisations do what they're paid to do.

AUDIENCE CHUCKLES OK? So kind of like the dog. Right?

I got a treat in my hand,

"I want you to sit down.

"You're going to get the treat."

All right? So that works great.

The dog sits down, give him the treat.

The dog doesn't sit down, don't give him the treat!

Mike Korchinsky says his comments were intended as a frivolous way

to illustrate a broader discussion about pay for performance,

they don't reflect his respect for local communities,

national governments and other partners

and that he regrets any offence that may have been caused.

The Kasigau project has been a big success for Wildlife Works.

Since 2011, it's generated 20 million carbon credits,

worth millions of dollars.

When credits are sold to people and organisations, like Netflix,

the profit is split back in Tsavo.

Funds are distributed in three ways.

The promotional video says most of the money goes to local people.

Most importantly, over 70% of the proceeds go to the community,

where they vote on how they're spent.

That sounds great -

but when we questioned Wildlife Works about the numbers,

it appears they may not have been as generous to the

community as the video suggests.

The company says, in the nine years to 2023,

its net revenue was $90 million.

And this is how it says it gets to 70% going to the community -

30.9 million to forest landowners,

25.8 million to community-based operations

and 10 million, the smallest amount,

to funding community projects that local people get to vote on.

Wildlife Works says 120,000 people live in the project area,

there are nearly 8,000 forest landowners,

and its revenue share model

is one of the most generous in the industry.

It says the project's created jobs, improved health care,

funded new classrooms and preserved wildlife and endangered species...

..and that the method used to calculate carbon credit numbers

has been developed through rigorous scientific study.

Since we wrote to Wildlife Works and Netflix,

the promotional video is no longer publicly available.

Barack Obama has declined to comment, as has Netflix.

Shell says it buys credits from projects

certified in accordance with independent standards.

TRUCK HORN TOOTS

Delta says it plans to use decarbonisation to get to net zero

by 2050 and has shifted away from carbon neutrality and offsets.

There's no regulation of carbon credits.

There is no global government or local government

who's setting the rules.

People don't want rules and regulations.

And in the vacuum of no regulation,

you're reliant on the institutions to...do the right thing.

With no regulation of the credits most companies buy,

the industry relies on verification agencies to safeguard standards.

One of the biggest is called Verra.

It works with carbon credit developers

to help calculate the number of credits that can be sold.

Toby Janson-Smith is one of its senior executives.

He's based in the States.

Verra has set standards that allows carbon projects

to quantify the climate benefits that they deliver

and then to generate carbon credits that can be sold

into the carbon market to generate funding to support those projects.

We've contacted an industry insider. He's never spoken publicly before.

Manuel Estrada has worked in the carbon credit business

since it started in the 1990s.

At the time, it was exciting, it was the future. You know?

I was proud of myself.

You know, I was thinking, "Yeah, when I have kids,

"I will be so proud saying, 'Well, you know, I changed the world.'"

Now, 20 years later, it's like...

No, really. No, it's like, "Sorry, kids, I tried my best," no?

Manuel Estrada was hired by Verra in 2020

to look at how developers were calculating the number of credits

they could sell from their projects.

He says he was concerned.

It could happen that, just by switching method,

just the same project, with the same activities and the same results,

would have a different volume of credits.

So it was something that was weird, no?

He says some of the developers' calculations weren't credible.

His team started work

on what he thought would be a more reliable method.

The idea of this methodology was that it would change everything, no?

That was the idea.

But projects may see their potential revenues decrease more than half.

We're talking about investments that may be in the millions of dollars.

He says, when he was there,

some project developers were pushing back hard against his proposals.

And I was there, you know? I can tell you, you can feel the pressure.

You had a lot of project developers that were like,

"No, we don't like these changes. Why are you doing this?"

So, yeah, it was a difficult moment,

because you have a system where everyone benefits, you know,

from not being too robust.

The system works like this -

verification agencies approve credits

based on the threat to the forest

and the number of trees to be protected.

More credits means more money - not just for the developer,

but for the verification agency, as well.

It gets a cut from each credit sold.

Verra benefits, because Verra receives money

for each credit that has been issued,

plus you had these relationships with project developers

that had grown for the last decade or so.

So if this system is working for them, then don't touch it.

Why would you change the rules if everyone's happy?

Verra gets paid by the developer

and then Verra also gets paid per credit generated, is that right?

Erm, that's right. Verra receives... has registration fees,

and then Verra also earns a small fee

from every credit that is issued.

But there does seem to be some conflict of interest.

You know, lots of people might think that

it's in the interest of Verra, in fact, to overestimate

the number of credits that can be produced from a certain project.

There's no incentive for us to generate additional revenue

or to make any profits, because that doesn't happen.

We're nonprofit, and the money just goes back into managing

the programmes to make sure they're being run

in the most efficient and effective way.

Verra IS a nonprofit organisation, but it generates a lot of money.

It holds reserves of $52 million,

and in 2022, its CEO got salary and benefits worth $420,000.

It says it's updated the way it calculates

the number of credits a project can sell.

While making this documentary, we've taken six flights

and driven around 2,000 miles.

Like other major broadcasters, the BBC has bought carbon credits

to offset the pollution caused by productions like this.

A Freedom of Information request revealed the corporation

bought £55,000 worth of carbon credits in 2022.

Almost half were bought here.

Cambodia is full of untouched rainforests...

..perfect for absorbing carbon pollution...

..but it also has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world.

The Keo Seima project is run by a developer

called the Wildlife Conservation Society.

It's generated 21 million carbon credits.

That should mean it's offset 21 million tonnes of carbon pollution.

Thales West, who's been studying offsetting projects

around the world, doesn't think the numbers add up.

What we've found

for the Keo Seima project

is that the project itself IS reducing deforestation,

it's simply not reducing as much deforestation

as claimed by the project developers.

What kind of...discrepancy are we talking about here?

Looking at our results,

I would say that more than half of the credits

from that project are not real offsets.

There are also concerns about what's happening just outside the project.

This is a satellite image of an area of rainforest

right next to the project.

It was taken in 2011, a year after the project started.

This is what's left of that same piece of forest today.

It shows that since the project started,

loggers have moved into the neighbouring area,

where the forest is far less protected.

COCK CROWS

DOG BARKS

HAMMERING

Bol Kroeunh and Kong Kronh are part of a community

who live next to the project.

For generations, they've protected this part of the forest themselves -

but recently it's become a losing battle.

Because of the increased logging, their way of life is under threat.

The Wildlife Conservation Society says third-party audits

affirm the validity of its carbon credits,

the rate of project forest loss

is lower than other protected areas in Cambodia,

and any loss outside the project area

is fully tracked and accounted for.

It says it's channelled nearly $2 million to local communities

and indigenous peoples since 2019.

The BBC says it has in the past purchased carbon offsets

to meet industry-wide mandatory requirements.

It says its net zero strategy

is now focused on deep decarbonisation

rather than relying on offsetting.

Boeing and Deliveroo have bought credits

in another project in Cambodia.

Southern Cardamom is one of the country's biggest projects.

The project developers, Wildlife Alliance,

say almost 500,000 hectares of rainforest are being protected.

The project started in 2015

and has been developed in partnership

with the Cambodian government.

What I'm doing here is to try to get all the finance from carbon credit,

as much as possible, to help to develop the communities,

to make sure that their living condition is improved.

That can teach them to become entrepreneurs...

..and get them to help me to develop,

to expand the coverage area to make more money from carbon credit.

The developers say they have strong community backing...

..but last year, the verification agency Verra

suspended the sale of new credits

after it began an investigation into claims of forced evictions.

Wildlife Alliance says any removals were carried out lawfully.

QUIET CONVERSATION

We've also been hearing about other concerns.

A local journalist tells us to head to an area

in the north-west of the project where heavy machinery has been seen.

Our local producer speaks to some of the construction workers.

Can you ask them what they're doing?

BANGING AND HAMMERING

A major road is being built

that'll cut through part of the protected forest.

As part of a programme of Chinese investment,

not only is a road being built, but a hydroelectric dam is, too.

TRUCK HORN BLARES

The project says this is just the kind of threat

it was intended to protect against.

Wildlife Alliance says it recognises

the Cambodian government faces a difficult trade-off

between economic development

and protecting the environment.

We visited South Cardamom. Mm-hm.

And we found that there was a significant amount of deforestation

caused by the new road

and one dam that is actually within the boundaries of the project.

Mm-hm. How is this consistent with your goals?

Cambodia's only 25 years old. We only have peace for 25 years,

and we need access roads, we need energy securities.

When a dam is built within the project and causes deforestation,

what happens to those credits?

The amount that they purchase is not affected at all,

and with the reforestation that we are putting out,

one million trees per year planting,

I'm sure that that will be compensating the impact.

But according to climate experts,

planting trees can never make up for the loss of established rainforest.

Rainforests today are like the lungs of the Earth.

They are our life support in this climate crisis.

It's critically important that we keep existing rich ecosystems,

like rainforests, intact,

because they store far more carbon than we ever could

if we just started planting trees everywhere.

The credits sold in Southern Cardamom are certified by Verra.

This is government-sanctioned logging,

taking place within the project.

How is that consistent with the goals of avoiding deforestation?

Hmm... I'm not aware of that particular infraction

that you highlight.

If that indeed is happening,

we would welcome hearing about it,

and then we would absolutely address that.

What, then, is the value of those credits

that have been sold to companies?

The individual trees could be lost,

but overall, the project has generated more climate benefits

to make up for that, and some.

So there's not an inherent problem that you lose forests.

It's just how you account for it needs to be robust.

Sorry, Joel, go ahead. What?

Verra's PR director interrupts.

He's been monitoring the interview remotely

and tells his colleague to stop talking about the project

because of the investigation into alleged forced evictions

that's already under way.

OK. Erm, yeah, and just to say, Joel's pointing out that, you know,

the Cardamom, because it's Section 6,

it's an ongoing investigation, so we really shouldn't comment

about that specific project right now.

The project didn't feature in reports

criticising the value of forest carbon credits.

Wildlife Alliance says the project protects a vast area

of important but threatened rainforest,

it advances the land rights of people in 29 villages

and has financed schools, medical centres, safe water wells

and university scholarships.

It says it couldn't alert Verra to the construction work

because the project had already been suspended

and that deforestation can reduce

the number of credits but not their value.

Deliveroo says it hasn't used carbon offsetting since 2021

and it's not part of its strategy to reach its net zero target.

Boeing says it believes nature and tech-based solutions

are required to decarbonise and it relies on assurances from Verra.

British Airways, which has bought other avoided deforestation credits,

says it recognises the carbon offset market

is not a complete solution, but that it has an interim role for aviation

as the industry develops and scales up new technology.

Back in the UK, we found an environmental consultancy

featuring on its website the two Cambodian projects we visited.

Ecologi sells credits and says it's offered advice to 20,000 clients.

We're going to secretly film a meeting with them.

We've told them we're about to make a travel series

and that means lots of carbon pollution. We say our US backers

want us to be carbon neutral but they've got a tight budget.

We're told the first step

is to reduce our day-to-day carbon emissions

but we don't have to reduce them very much.

Then it's onto the carbon credits. She says there are two types -

carbon avoidance credits, like the sort we've been looking at,

or what she calls upgraded carbon removal credits,

which are more expensive.

Another organisation can then certify us carbon neutral.

We asked Kaya Axelsson from Oxford University to review the footage.

She worked with the UN to set up new guidelines for carbon offsetting.

She says it's not good practice to tell companies

they only need to reduce their emissions by a small amount.

One thing that is a problem with what she said - unfortunately,

it's very common practice -

is you only have to reduce even just one tonne,

and then if you buy credits for the rest

you can have a carbon neutrality badge.

That is a really poor message to be sending

when we really need to be reducing our emissions,

our own emissions, rapidly.

And, for her, small reductions in carbon emissions

should never be enough for a company to be declared carbon neutral.

To tack on the carbon neutrality badge that you get after doing that,

which is really misleading to the public,

that there has in fact been a neutral impact on the climate,

that is even more misleading.

During the meeting, Ecologi advises us long-term

to make big reductions to our carbon footprint.

Then she brings up the Guardian article

that criticised many avoided deforestation projects.

But, at the time of filming,

Ecologi's website featured eight projects

mentioned in the research behind the Guardian report.

Ecologi says it's built on trust and transparency

and, together with its partners,

uses state-of-the-art technology to assess project quality.

It says not all the projects on its website are available to fund

and it's now made this clearer.

It says it hasn't funded the Southern Cardamom project

since the end of 2022 and says Keo Seima remains good quality

but it has no plans to buy more credits from there.

There are signs regulation is catching up

with the use of carbon credits.

From 2026, the EU will ban businesses

from using them to make carbon neutral claims...

..and some companies have told us,

while they still plan to reach net zero,

they're moving away from carbon credits altogether.

One of my biggest fears in this discussion about the problems

in the carbon market is that people will just get cynical

and turn away and stop trying to make and meet net zero targets.

It is critical that we actually do that work.

We can't afford companies to be backing off of their targets.

The stakes couldn't be higher.

Many companies have locked themselves into climate commitments.

And if they can't rely on the carbon market to help them get there,

then the pressure is on to cut their emissions fast.