ABSTRACT

This research assesses the carbon claims of two forest carbon projects in the states of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh in India, which are being supported by European Union and World Bank respectively. This research finds that both the projects had sequestered only 37% and 3% of the carbon estimated in the project documents up to their first verification period. Only one of the projects i.e., Himachal Pradesh project could earn 38% of the projected credits. Haryana project could not claim carbon credits as more than half of the participants had left the project due to various issues. Haryana and Himachal projects have reported high costs of USD 0.5 million and USD 1.83 million respectively. Both the projects have become unsustainable early in their lifecycle due to low or no carbon revenues, high costs and other governance issues. The available empirical evidence from across the globe also suggests high costs and mixed results on carbon from the forest carbon projects. Hence, it is imperative to revisit the established narrative of ‘big and cheap carbon’ with the robust empirical evidence before further scaling up of the forest carbon projects.

摘要

本研究评估了印度哈里亚纳邦和喜马偕尔邦两个森林碳项目的碳声明，这两个项目分别得到了欧盟和世界银行的支持。这项研究发现，到第一个验证期为止，这两个项目仅封存了项目文件中估计的碳的 37% 和 3%。只有其中一个项目，即喜马偕尔邦项目，可以获得预计信用的 38%。哈里亚纳邦项目无法申请碳信用，因为超过一半的参与者因各种问题离开了该项目。哈里亚纳邦和喜马偕尔邦项目报告的高成本分别为 50 万美元和 183 万美元。由于碳收入低或没有碳收入、高成本和其他治理问题，这两个项目在其生命周期的早期都变得不可持续。来自全球的现有经验证据也表明森林碳项目的碳成本高且结果好坏参半。因此，在进一步扩大森林碳项目之前，必须用强有力的经验证据重新审视“大而便宜的碳”的既定叙述。