EU LAW NAILS EMISSIONS TRADE SCAMMERS, Part 2

Climate change campaign creates carbon crimes; Fraudulent Permit Trading Surfaces In Europe
Arthur Max, August 23, 2009 (AP via San Diego North County Times)

(For Part 1, see yesterday’s SUNDAY WORLD)
"Customs agents…arrested nine people in the London area suspected of a multimillion dollar fraud in trading carbon permits, bringing attention to a rich new field for crime sprung from the fight against climate change…[and confirming] fears among law enforcement officers that swindlers ---- operating from the trading floors of Europe to the tropical forests of the Pacific ---- are being attracted to a market that has grown to more than $100 billion.

"…[Familiar scams are being used in the emissions permit trade]…A different set of problems threaten the trade in credits derived from halting deforestation…Forests store vast amounts of carbon, and release it when trees are cut or burned. Scientists say deforestation contributes about 20 percent of all the carbon leeching into the atmosphere."

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"By measuring the amount of carbon held in a forested area, a value can be placed on that carbon and owners can be compensated for preserving them. Carbon offsets, purchased by airline passengers or concert-goers who voluntarily want to cut their carbon footprint or big corporations that need to meet emissions targets, buy the credits from the forest owner…But shady brokers…persuade landowners, especially forest dwellers with little understanding of modern commerce, to sell a share of the rights to the carbon stored in their trees, counting on a hefty profits later…

"In July, the head of Papua New Guinea's Office of Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability, Theo Yasause, was suspended pending an investigation for allegedly issuing some 40 tons of carbon credits for preventing deforestation. Such credits do not yet exist for governments to sell since there is no mechanism in place to measure and verify that forests are being preserved."

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"U.N. talks aimed at a new global warming agreement in Copenhagen are seeking ways to scale up efforts to avoid deforestation to make it worthwhile for governments like Brazil or Papua New Guinea to save their rapidly depleting rain forests…Negotiators are working on ways to verify that logging trends have been reversed, largely through satellite imagery, and on raising billions of dollars to compensate rain forest countries -- with the carbon market as one possibility…[C]limate negotiators are trying to build safeguards into the Copenhagen climate agreement to limit the opportunity for criminals. Chief among them is postponing any payment for avoiding deforestation until inspectors verify that tree-cutting trends had been reversed.

"Peter Younger, the Interpol officer who deals with environmental crime and wildlife smuggling, says illegal logging and tax fraud is bound to grow as the market expands…"