The IAPB/BCA/WEF coalition continues to promote its framework for “high integrity” biodiversity credit markets. An in-depth look makes us find that several of its features contradict the high integrity claim.
In particular, we find that:
– the underlying funding gap framing is questionable;
– the fact that market solutions are most often used against – rather in complement to other policy tools is ignored;
– the framework fails to address the root causes of biodiversity loss;
– the framework allows multinational corporations to operate business as usual across countries by offsetting within an undefined “local area”;
– it allows for the issuance of ex-ante credits, before any positive impact has been measured;
– it introduces maintenance credits that have no ecological additionality;
– it fails to ban explicitly secondary market trading, aka unlimited speculation, despite its well-known impact on price volatility;
– it leaves specific roles for Indigenous People and Local Communities vague and unspecified;
– There is also an absence of detailed recommendations for legal liabilities, penalties, sanctions in case of harm;