California’s Forest Offsets
Polluters Buy Air from Logged Forests to Increase Pollution
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Trees breathe. They absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. Because of this sacred gift, forests and even air are being privatized as a fake and false solution to climate change. i Instead of cutting pollution at source, polluters like Chevron ii buy permits to pollute from logging companies, stock markets or even American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes (Native Nations), and pretend to use forests as dumps for their pollution. These permits to pollute are called carbon credits or forest offsets. iii Forest offsets make global warming worse because they actually allow polluters to pollute more iv and forests to be logged. v These offsets do not cut emissions at source.
Unfortunately, most Native leaders and communities do not receive the complete information about how harmful these carbon market projects are for our peoples, our children’s future and Mother Earth before signing on to them. vi For example, Chevron is the biggest corporate polluter in history.vii Since 2012, the Yurok Tribe of northern California are using Redwood forests for “improved forest management,” viii which includes logging,ix to sell carbon offset permits to pollute x to Chevron, xi Tesoro and Calpine Energy Services. According to the State of California, the Yurok Tribe/ Forest Carbon Partners CKGG Improved Management Project generates “income from carbon offset sales and logging.” xii California offset contracts are for 100 years. xiii
Meanwhile, in Richmond, California, Chevron’s refinery exploded xiv on August 6th, 2012,xv sending over 14,000 people to the hospital. xvi However, thanks to forest offsets and carbon trading, Chevron is increasing, not reducing its pollution. In fence-line communities, people of color, low-income people including Indigenous Peoples are suffering asthma attacks, collapsing from heart attacks and dying of cancer as Chevron expands its refinery and increases pollution.
In Oil and Gas Journal, Chevron admits it will process crude with higher levels of sickening sulfur: xvii “[T]he amended plan [to expand the refinery] still affords the complex flexibility to process crude blends and gas oils containing higher levels of sulfur…” xviii
Thanks to California’s “cap and trade” program, it is much cheaper for Chevron to buy forest offsets from the Yurok than to stop polluting. xix The Yurok Tribe’s forest offsets let Chevron off the hook. Forest offsets also greenwash Chevron while it continues to destroy the climate and people’s health. And frack.xx And not pay the $9.5 billion Chevron-Texaco owes Indigenous survivors of its devastation of the Ecuadorian Amazon,xxi where it contributed to the genocide of the Sansahuari and Tetetes Peoples.xxii Furthermore, Chevron’s Richmond refinery processes crude oil from the Amazon xxiii and the Canadian Tar Sands, xxiv where its extraction harms Indigenous Peoples and the environment. Back in the Golden State, millions of gallons of explosive Amazon and Canadian Tar Sands crude are shipped by oil tankers xxv and train xxvi to refineries, threatening the ocean and land with dangerous spills and accidents.
The Yurok Tribe is not the only U.S. Tribe selling forest offsets to an oil company. Despite votes against it, xxvii the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington State signed a California offset contract for 100 years,xxviii which sells permits to pollute to oil giant BP. xxix BP is infamous for human rights abuses, xxx and the Deepwater oil spill in the Gulf. Not to be left behind, Shell Oil, which caused ecocide in the Ogoni Peoples’ territory in Nigeria, xxxi is using forests in Michigan to offset its refinery in Martinez, California. xxxii
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