Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by Simon Counsell and Survival International Blood Carbon: how carbon offset schemes are devastating Indigenous peoples and their forests in Cambodia, published October 2024, in particular the adequacy and effectiveness of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation+ projects in reducing carbon emissions.

The report highlights the importance of getting forest carbon projects right. Carbon markets could provide billions of dollars of much needed finance to protect the forests in the UK and internationally but we will only be able to build these markets if they have environmental and social integrity. That is why the UK government has been supporting tropical forest countries to develop high integrity forest carbon credits. It is also why the Government will soon be launching a consultation on how it could support higher integrity in voluntary carbon and nature markets. While the evidence for the effectiveness of forest carbon projects has been mixed, the UK focuses its efforts on scaling Jurisdictional REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), which covers entire countries or states. This approach helps to address the challenges linked with more traditional ‘project-based’ REDD+, for example, the ‘leakage’ of carbon emissions.

The Government will continue to work through international fora to ensure that the voices of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities are heard and respected. To this end, the UK welcomes the agreement of the Appeals and Grievances Procedure for the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism, which provides an important route for safeguarding.