The world's biggest carbon project developer South Pole has decided to leave the giant Kariba Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) project, it was announced today.
The firm has terminated its contract with Carbon Green Investments (CGI), the owner and developer of Kariba, it said. All activities pertaining to carbon certification and carbon credits will now be the responsibility of CGI, according to South Pole, confirming its role as carbon asset developer for Kariba is at an end.
The move follows a spate of public criticism regarding the integrity of the project and the carbon credits associated with it over the course of 2023. Last week, Carbon registry Verra launched an investigation into Kariba, placing credit issuances on hold, following heavy criticism of the project in an article published in The New Yorker magazine. Verra said it had not previously known about the criticisms and it was "deeply disturbed" by them.
Prior to that, South Pole paused the sale of carbon credits deriving from the 2019-21 vintages of Kariba in January, as it started baseline revalidation work to assess the discrepancy between "the modelled deforestation rate and the deforestation rate observed in the reference area". Ratings agency BeZero put the project under "rating watch" on 31 January and it is currently rated as BBB, which means it believes each credit associated with the project has a "moderate" chance of accurately representing 1t of CO2e avoided or removed from the atmosphere.
Kariba, located in Zimbabwe, was launched in 2010, with the first credit issuances made in 2013. It accounts for about 97pc of Zimbabwe's carbon credits, with just under 27mn issued to date.
South Pole said it "continues to believe in the significance of the Kariba REDD+ project for local communities, large-scale forest protection and local biodiversity", emphasising the importance of mitigating the drawbacks for those who might benefit from the project resulting from its withdrawal from it. The firm offered its support to Zimbabwean authorities for "a period of time" to help with the forthcoming transition.
South Pole went on to say it plans to learn from the experience of working on Kariba, adding it is "well aware" of the scrutiny currently fixed on the voluntary carbon market (VCM). It said it is conducting quality control reviews of all of its projects.
A spokeperson for South Pole said: "We are not confident that the project meets the high standards we expect from our partners all over the world…. Despite materially complying with the relevant Verra and Climate, Community & Biodiversity standard requirements at all stages of the project, we are disappointed with aspects of how the project was managed on the ground by the project owner."
By Felix Todd
