DW uncovered that dozens of Chinese climate projects, certified by the German authorities as carbon credits under the upstream emission reduction scheme, failed to deliver on promises to save millions of tons of carbon emissions. A joint investigation by DW and ZDF reveals how Germany was deceived – and exposes the shadowy company Beijing Karbon behind the alleged fraud.
#PlanetA #CarbonOffsets #InvestigativeJournalism
Credits:
An investigation by: Mathias Bölinger and Birgitta Schülke in cooperation with ZDF-Frontal
Additional research: Yuchen Li
Camera and Video editing: Dmytro Katkov
Fact-checking: Carolyn Thompson
Editor: Naomi Conrad
Legal Support: Florian Wagenknecht
Executive Producer: Kiyo Dörrer, Katharina Kroll
Thumbnail: Em Chabridon
Video by our colleagues from ZDF (in German): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpRMNelV_Fg
Read more:
Background information about the carbon credit scheme from the Federal Environment Agency:
https://www.dehst.de/EN/Topics/Climate-Projects/UERV/uerv_node.html#doc286006bodyText7
Background on the prosecutor’s investigation (press release):
https://www.berlin.de/generalstaatsanwaltschaft/presse/pressemitteilungen/2024/pressemitteilung.1466648.php
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:50 Investigating projects in China
03:10 Upstream Emission Reduction (UER): A new scheme in Germany
04:05 Lack of control by the German authorities
07:13 The Chinese company behind the alleged fraud
10:44 The buyers
12:25 Were the auditors complicit?
14:30 The Consequences