{"id":82891,"date":"2022-06-23T15:09:12","date_gmt":"2022-06-23T15:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chinadialogue.net\/?post_type=news_digest&p=82891"},"modified":"2022-06-23T16:06:46","modified_gmt":"2022-06-23T16:06:46","slug":"use-of-carbon-credits-in-legal-cases-causes-controversy","status":"publish","type":"news_digest","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/digest\/use-of-carbon-credits-in-legal-cases-causes-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"Use of carbon credits in legal cases causes controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The controversial practice of purchasing carbon credits to compensate for ecological damage has been endorsed by China\u2019s supreme court, in a legal interpretation around forest-related civil disputes released<\/a> on 13 June, effective two days later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The interpretation supports carbon credits\u2019 use to fulfil liabilities for ecological harm in exchange for commutation of sentences, and also acknowledges their legality as collateral. The issuance of the opinion is branded by the supreme court as the judicial system\u2019s answer to the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals announced by President Xi Jinping in September 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first case using the purchase of carbon credits as alternative compensation appeared in March 2020<\/a>, when a local court in Nanping, Fujian province, dished out a more lenient sentence in an illegal logging case after the defendant purchased 40,000 yuan (US$6,000) of carbon offsets. In recent months, a cascade of rulings saw local courts in Guizhou<\/a>, Sichuan<\/a>, Shaanxi<\/a>, Jiangxi<\/a> and Fujian<\/a> provinces making their local \u201cfirsts\u201d in adopting the same model, sometimes in collaboration with local procurator\u2019s offices, in forest-related cases and beyond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May, another court<\/a> in Fujian allowed the defendants to purchase 100,000 yuan (US$15,000) of \u201cmarine carbon credits\u201d to compensate for ecological damage in an illegal sand mining case. Some local judges even expressed<\/a> interest in exploring carbon credits\u2019 application in cases related to wild animal poaching, in order to offset the damages to biodiversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reports of such experiments, it is often unclear what particular carbon credit products were brokered by the courts. Often they are simply referred to as \u201ccarbon credits\u201d without details on whether the product is in the national China Certified Emission Reductions scheme<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are also hard questions from legal experts<\/a> as to how the purchase of carbon credits can serve as \u201ccompensation\u201d for past damage when the defendants, now owning them, can only offset future emissions. The use of carbon sequestration as a shorthand for ecological restoration, regardless of the wider damage to ecosystems and biodiversity, is also questioned by conservationists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read China Dialogue\u2019s recent coverage of <\/em>the reboot of China\u2019s national carbon credit market<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The controversial practice of purchasing carbon credits to compensate for ecological damage has been endorsed by China\u2019s supreme court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":75286,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[761],"tags":[511,560],"country":[],"digest-collection":[],"class_list":["post-82891","news_digest","type-news_digest","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate","tag-biodiversity","tag-law"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nUse of carbon credits in legal cases causes controversy | Dialogue Earth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The controversial practice of purchasing carbon credits to compensate for ecological damage has been endorsed by China\u2019s supreme court.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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