Industry and NGOs lobby to weaken UN carbon credit rules in “coordinated” push

illuminem summarises for you the essential news of the day, reviewed by our editorial team. Read the full piece on Climate Home News or enjoy below:

🗞️ Driving the news: Carbon credit developers, corporate buyers and some conservation NGOs are contesting proposed UN rules meant to stop credits being wiped out by fire, drought or logging
• Documents reportedly seen by Climate Home News show these groups and UNEP disputing the scientific basis for the change, arguing it would raise costs and restrict credit supply

🔭 The context: Projects currently hold a share of credits in buffer pools as insurance against reversal, sized largely by expert judgement and sometimes by developers' own data
• In July the Article 6.4 technical panel proposed sizing those pools using local risk values from independent research instead

🌍 Why it matters for the planet: If stored carbon burns or is logged and the reserve cannot cover it, the emissions remain in the atmosphere while the buyer has already claimed the offset — a net increase presented as neutrality
• Reversal risk is rising with fires and drought, which is why measured local risk matters more than estimates

⏭️ What's next: The technical panel is expected to submit recommendations to the mechanism's Supervisory Body for decision in early October

📈 One stat: Over 30 public submissions reviewed showed substantial overlap in wording, some containing copied passages or entire texts

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