Independent evaluationCorroborated

Zimbabwe forest carbon megaproject generated millions of "junk" credits

Climate Home News2025-09-30
Published accounts

Both sides, as published

This is a contested claim. Each organisation’s own account is shown in full below; the hub draws no composite finding between them.

Climate Home News

“Verra's own two-year technical review found "57% of Kariba's nearly 27 million credits were issued 'in excess'" because "actual deforestation observed in a reference area chosen by Kariba's project developers" was "significantly lower" than projected. Buyers named include "Gucci, Volkswagen, Nestlé and Dutch electricity firm Greenchoice." Analyst Jonathan Crook: it remains "not clear what, if anything concrete, will happen if CGI refuses this request [for compensation].”

Publisher
Climate Home News
Date
2025-09-30
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Verra

“Many of the details reported in this article are new to Verra and were only learned upon publication of the article." / "The project, and any further credit issuances, will remain on hold until Verra completes the investigation." / "Verra launched a new internal Auditing and Accreditation team in September 2022 to oversee the performance of validation/verification bodies.”

Date
2023-10-17
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statement body

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South Pole

“We are not confident that the project meets the high standards we expect from our partners all over the world." / "We are disappointed with aspects of how the project was managed on the ground by the project owner." South Pole says it has "been working on enhancing its group-wide quality control and due diligence processes" for over a year.”

Publisher
South Pole
Date
2023-10-27
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Subjects

Kariba REDD+