Whether it's fraudulent trading in EU carbon emissions credits or Australia allegedly covering up emissions, the international business of carbon accounting continues to take hits.
In the European Union, fraud within the carbon trading community may have cost taxpayers more than $7 billion in the past 18 months, reports CBC News.
Europol indicates that in some EU nations, up to 90 percent of all carbon market volume was related to "fraudulent activities."
Since cracking down on alleged fraud in France, the Netherlands, the UK and Spain, such carbon fraud may have declined as much as 90 percent, Interpol said. A reverse trading method was proposed several months ago to cut down on the fraud.
In September, the biggest clean energy auditor in the world was suspended by United Nations inspectors. SGS UK’s accreditation was suspended after accusations that its staff had not properly audited projects in carbon trading markets. It also was asserted that SGS’s auditors were not qualified to perform the audits.
Meanwhile, Australia is accused of covering up emissions from bushfires and logging in its overview of emissions to other nations involved in the Copenhagen climate talks, reports the The Angle.
By misrepresenting its emissions, Australia has become the object of scorn and derision by other nations participating at the COP 15 talks, reports the Business Standard.
French ambassador for climate change Brice Lalonde said that Australia was hypocritically attempting to deceive the world by insisting that developing nations account for emissions from forest clear-cutting while itself ignoring emissions from bushfires.
Still, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said that the offers by both developed and developing nations to cut emissions are "inadequate," reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
