This chapter explores the UN's purchase of carbon credits from projects involved in displacing local communities and neglecting to adequately compensate them. It highlights a specific case in Brazil where a hydropower dam destroyed a sacred site of an indigenous community, exposing the contradiction between these projects' climate claims and their impact on deforestation and indigenous people.
“I don't think you want an organisation that is misleading the public about its achievements addressing the climate crisis, to necessarily be the one leading the global effort to do something about the climate crisis.”
The UN claims they're "climate neutral"—it couldn't be farther from the truth.
A recent investigation done by Mongabay and the New Humanitarian revealed many carbon credit projects the UN buys are linked to protest, rainforest destruction and dispossession of indigenous people. I'm joined by reporter Jacob Goldberg who investigated this story for over a year.
Shockingly, he reveals the UN performs no checks on the carbon credits they buy—and did not respond to the reporters once they raised the alarm. As he says during the episode—can we trust an institution that can’t even keep track of the harm it’s doing to really lead the world through the climate crisis?
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