Two Shades of Green

The report analyzes the Mataven and Kaliawiri REDD+ projects in Colombia, finding they generated approximately 21 million more carbon credits than justified by official government reference values. These 'hot air' credits were used by companies, primarily Primax Colombia SAS, to avoid paying the national carbon tax, leading to an estimated US$62 million in potential forgone tax revenues. The document attributes this to a system failure involving conflicts of interest for verification bodies, lack of stringency from standards like Verra (VCS) and ProClima, and insufficient enforcement by the Colombian Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development.

• The Mataven and Kaliawiri REDD+ projects generated approximately 21 million more carbon credits than they would have if they had used official government reference values for their baselines. Of these, 12.4 million may breach national regulation or exploit regulatory lack of clarity.
• The use of these 'hot air' credits as substitutes for the Colombian carbon tax has caused significant financial losses to the state. Total potential forgone tax revenues are estimated at US$62 million, with US$25 million already lost due to 4.9 million credits used, mostly by the fossil fuel distributor Primax Colombia SAS.
• The Mataven project's baseline is qualitatively inflated because its reference area is not a realistic comparison for the project area, specifically regarding the size of the deforestation frontier, road access, and the fact that the project area is under Indigenous Peoples' legal and territorial control.
• Quantitative analysis shows the Mataven project's implied annual deforestation rate of 0.86% is nearly five times higher than the Amazon biome FREL rate of 0.18% and significantly higher than the historical rate in the Vichada department (0.22%).
• The Kaliawiri project also used an inflated baseline, with an estimated annual deforestation rate of 0.6%, which is more than three times the FREL rate of 0.18% and significantly higher than historical rates in Vichada (0.16%) and Guainia (0.04%).
• A systemic failure is identified where Validation and Verification Bodies (VVBs) face conflicts of interest because they are selected and paid by project developers, potentially compromising their independence.
• The Colombian government has suffered losses in international climate finance because it had to deduct credits sold on the voluntary market by the Mataven project from payments received for the Vision Amazonia programme.

APA

Carbon Market Watch (2021). Two Shades of Green. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Two-shades-of-green_EN_WEB.pdf

Chicago

Carbon Market Watch. Two Shades of Green. 2021. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Two-shades-of-green_EN_WEB.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Carbon Market Watch |title=Two Shades of Green |date=June 2021 |url=https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Two-shades-of-green_EN_WEB.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{carbonmarketwatch2021two, author = {{Carbon Market Watch}}, title = {{Two Shades of Green}}, institution = {Carbon Market Watch}, year = {2021}, month = jun, url = {https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Two-shades-of-green_EN_WEB.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }