 [00:00:00] Hello, welcome to The Spill, a new weekly show brought to you by the team at Drilled. I'm Nina Lakhani. I'm the global climate justice reporter at Drilled.

Ever wonder how fossil fuels and climate breakdown infringe on our basic human rights? Or why some so-called climate solutions could actually be doing more harm than good? Well, today's show is for you, as I'm delighted to be talking to Elisa Morgera, the UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change, about her latest report on everyone's favorite false climate solution, carbon markets, on what special rapporteurs actually do and a lot more.

You can hear The Spill every Friday, wherever you get your podcasts, in-between Drilled's narrative seasons. We've got lots of good interviews lined up for you in the coming weeks with researchers, journalists, activists, and people on the front line of climate breakdown. Here’s my conversation with Elisa.

 So to give you your full title, you're the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in the Context of Climate Change. So that's all going really well for us in the world right now — human rights and climate change, right?

 Yeah. No, we have reason to worry, but also, we can rely on human rights to understand what action we should and must prioritize, and we still have a window of opportunity to turn things around

 Great. Well, listen, I wonder if you could just give us a little bit of a brief summary about the roles of special rapporteurs.

 Yes, we are appointed by the Human Rights Council, so there's a whole transparent process. We are pro bono experts advising independently on the impacts, in my case, on the impacts of climate change on human rights, but also the impacts of some climate measures on human rights — particularly listening to the voices of individuals and communities who are most affected by climate change in different regions, but [00:02:00] also talking to different scientists, members of government and parliaments, the judiciary, everyone who can provide evidence to help us navigate that landscape and understand how human rights are impacted, but equally how human rights norms and approaches can lead us to more effective and equitable action.

 For your first mandate you set out on a mission to think about defossilization and looking at the obstacles to a real just transition.

Just tell me how you came about that and why you decided to center the first three years of your mandate on this.

 Yeah, and it's been really an organic process. I didn't start with a set agenda. I had several consultations with environmental, human rights defenders, indigenous experts, children, states in all the regions to understand what priorities my mandate should identify. And I started that work on defossilization because it was clear that [00:03:00] we were not being able to talk and focus action on fossil fuels, even if they are the main cause of climate change in the UN climate process, and increasingly in other international processes such as the negotiations of a new UN plastics treaty, for instance.

 What happened is that as I started to do the work with the first report last year really focusing on fossil fuels in the energy sectors, that's where I realized that actually that avoidance of discussing fossil fuels was also hiding how there are other economic sectors where we are deepening our dependence on fossil fuels.

That's particularly the case of our food systems on land and in the ocean. And that hides a whole series of foreseeable human rights violations that, again, are not being discussed and where the vast majority of people may not be aware of the choices we're making, or are made for us, the directions that public funding is going, which are harmful to the planet, but also very harmful to our own health, [00:04:00] whether or not we find ourselves at the front lines of climate change

 Yeah, I mean, this year is the 31st UN Climate Negotiations, COP. And I think just once in that three decades of negotiations, the term fossil fuels has actually appeared in the final agreed resolution between all the governments, which, as you say, is just wild, given that it is fossil fuels that are predominantly driving global heating and the climate breakdown that we're experiencing now.

 Yes. And I think maybe what is even more worrying is that in the lead-up to COP30, there was a significant, a vast majority of countries who wanted to have an explicit outcome on fossil fuels for a variety of reasons, including the climate crisis, but also the protection of health, and they were effectively blocked.

It was not possible to reach the consensus among all parties to the international climate regime to have an explicit outcome on fossil fuels. And we're seeing that these [00:05:00] blocking strategies are being employed time and again across UN processes that may have relevance to phasing out fossil fuels

 Yeah. And so let's talk about your latest report, which is on carbon markets and carbon credits. So this is a solution that has been adopted within the COP or the UNFCCC climate process as a legitimate mitigation tool, a way to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which isn't defossilization; it's decarbonization, and maybe we can talk a little bit about that.

The sort of carbon credit projects that people might be aware of — things around forest conservation, methane capture in landfills clean cooking stoves renewable energy projects. And correct me if I'm wrong, but, from my own work, most of these projects are in developing countries.

But they've been embraced by states and big corporations. Everyone from fashion houses, food conglomerates, airlines, you name it have taken this up with gusto, and it's been embedded into the climate action process within the UNFCCC for two decades now. Give us a little summary, if you can, just about this sort of humongous industry that has developed, where it came from, and why you decided to look at this as one of your main reports.

 Yeah, I think it's a really complex area of international climate diplomacy and action. It's quite impenetrable, and there are so many hopes around it. You know, the expectations is that because phasing out fossil fuels is difficult economically and technically, or at least it used to be more difficult technically, this would be a way to devise areas of cooperation where it would be more cost-effective for highly emitting countries [00:07:00] to decarbonize, and it would lead to more resources and technologies being transferred to least responsible countries and most affected countries by climate change.

Now, this remains the narrative, but the truth is, it's very hard to see whether this is truly working and working sufficiently to really contribute to climate mitigation and to the channeling of financial resources to those who most need them.

And I think this was the reason for the report, to really try and make this area more accessible for everyone to be able to have a say, as opposed to being kind of left out of that conversation, particularly at a time when, well, not only the climate crisis is worsening, not only we have three advisory opinions of international tribunals clarifying that states have stringent due diligence to make their best, their most effective action to mitigate climate change — but also at a time when we hear that there is not as [00:08:00] much public funding going into climate change, and, in fact, we're diverting funding into other areas, including militarization, which we know is harmful to the climate. So really understanding whether or not this is a tool that lives up to the expectations has become a matter of urgency.

 So you found that the underlying logic of carbon markets actually perpetuates greenwashing and fraud, and carbon credits could keep us hooked on fossil fuels. Could you tell us a bit more about both of those findings?

 Yeah, so this is really interesting research that has come out from many experts in this area who have realized that what we thought were adjustments that could be made incrementally to make sure that this tool could work according to its expected outcomes, that the very market logic is actually incentivizing low quality and low price credits.

And this is a problem in itself. There's no fixing [00:09:00] this, and this then needs to be related to growing evidence of greenwashing and fraud that has been documented.

But the other point is also that now we have significant evidence of a pattern of human rights violations in many of these projects, particularly in violating the human rights of Indigenous peoples, of peasants, and small scale fishers, linked with unprecedented land accumulation, which is also being driven by the search for new opportunities for carbon credit markets.

And all of that in itself is a source of concern for our food security in the context of a worsening climate crisis. But it also points to the fact that, again, if these are repeated patterns of violations, there's something that's a structural problem with the design, the very idea of carbon credit markets.

That's not just something that can be fixed with better regulation. And this is really the question that should be central in any conversation on this topic. [00:10:00] And what it really kind of brings to the surface is that while we need to be, of course, preventing any violation of Indigenous people's rights and peasants' rights, there's also a question about whether everyone's human right to a healthy environment is being undermined by this significant reliance on an instrument that's not delivering. And it might be intrinsically prone to favoring the economic actors who are driving the climate crisis and potentially making profit even from this tool.

 Yeah, I mean, I think the times that you know, I've attended the climate talks the thing that struck me is that the people who are being harmed by the climate crisis, or bearing the brunt of the climate breakdown already — so Indigenous people, peasants, people in rural communities small island nations — find it really hard in the negotiations to be heard, right? Not just their — not just the impacts on them, but also their [00:11:00] solutions. And yet the space that's available in the corridors of power for those who are talking about these financial instruments — because that's basically what they are, right? — they're sort of like these financial — they're about trades, they're about deals, they're about moving carbon from one place to another, literally, right? And so, I've never really understood why, when two decades on there's really no evidence that this is an effective climate action that is moving us in the right direction — why states, why the UNFCCC, continue to give it this central role, you know? Like, why do you think we continue to go down this road to nowhere?

 Yeah. I think there's two sides to that situation. On the one hand, I think there's a whole generations of climate law and climate science experts who think that, [00:12:00] well, it's 20 years that we're trying to make this work, and so we're getting closer to a point where we will be able to fix it in order to respond to all these shortcomings.

And I think they are doing this in good faith, and they're very aware of the politics the backlash against climate action and really thinking we need this as something that can be more palatable to decision-makers and maybe economic actors, you know, in a very difficult political context.

But then there's also the ones who are benefiting from this and who are hiding in plain sight. The fact that the vast majority of fossil fuel producers and car manufacturers are involved in carbon credit market should already make us feel, make us think that there is something worrying about this, that this is, at the very least, not really leading to the transformative change in our economies that we need to move away from a fossil fuel-based economy that will keep us in a climate crisis.

So there is [00:13:00] that kind of distinction among the different people who are involved in this. But then I think the other problem, as you say, is that there hasn't really been a dialogue between the experts who have that very detailed understanding of this very complex tool, and others coming in from a perspective of lived experiences of how this not only is negatively impacting the rights of those who are most affected by the climate crisis, but it's also, for instance, undermining Indigenous-led or peasant-led food systems, who are the most climate resilient, who are also helping us see what a food system that's not so reliant on fossil fuels looks like.

And so that is the paradox. I think it's a paradox of assumptions. And it's important to — I think what's really important is to find a way to open up the space for dialogue. Otherwise, we'll be stuck in a reality where this will continue to be such an important part and sucking so many resources, [00:14:00] while more and more the research is indicating that it will not be fixed or not be fixed enough to really protect us from worsening climate change, and the voices of those who can contribute to that conversation are being left behind or worse being seen as counterproductive or even seen as against climate action.

 Yeah. I mean, I see that all the time in the work that I've done, you know. We see time and time again, where carbon credit projects, for example, a reforestation project may be in, the Amazon, right? Or a project working with pastoralists in East Africa, right? And when community members describe the impact this has had on their traditional way of life, which has been sustainable, which has been a force for good regarding the health of the planet, and suddenly they're locked out of that, and it's sort of taken over by this industry. It's so hard for them to be [00:15:00] heard. It's so hard for those projects to actually, either be closed down or to be reformed radically. To me, it seems that that is sort of an indication of this imbalance of power that exists not only in the causes of climate change but also in the solutions, right?

This isn't just a so-called solution that could be delaying real climate action or the transition away from fossil fuels, but it actually in many cases, in many places, is causing harm to people, right? People who have come to communities that have contributed least to climate change but are now actually bearing the brunt of it, and now are being harmed by the solutions that are being touted within the international climate diplomacy world.

 Yes, the very conception of climate action and the international climate regime is built on what we're now calling the kind of the carbon tunnel vision.

So even the [00:16:00] idea that we can trade carbon credits, because, one, a carbon emission in the Amazon is equivalent to a carbon emission somewhere else — it actually doesn't make sense from a scientific perspective. Those emissions are not equivalent, and this is because in addition to looking at emissions, we really need to look at the climate system as part of all life supporting systems of the planet.

 This is where all the three advisory opinions have been clear. The climate is part of a healthy environment, is part of nature, is part of the ocean, is part of land and soil health. So we can't isolate and identify these kind of abstractions that might make sense in this economic model, but do not match, and increasingly are more and more mismatched, with our best available science, and then see that they are not adding up.

And in fact, when we have human rights violations, I think this really shows also how [00:17:00] our own human wellbeing is interlinked with the effective protection of the environment, and the two things are interlinked.

And eventually, you know, what it does, and — it's what you were saying — even a delay at this stage of the climate crisis is unacceptable, particularly now that we're all seeing the crossing of the 1.5. No delay can be accepted. And on top of this, we have evidence in some cases those projects actually lead to more emissions, and this in itself leads to more violations of human rights.

 You've mentioned advisory opinions a couple of times. So these are the advisory opinions by international, courts. The latest of those was released last year in July by the International Court of Justice, and I just wondered if you could briefly tell us, you know, what were the obligations and the duties that were set out in the ICJ advisory opinion, which is a historic landmark opinion. What we should understand when we think about [00:18:00] states that are now relying on carbon markets as part of their climate mitigation action.

 Yeah, and this is the whole point of the report, to really apply the understanding arising from the advisory opinion of the ICJ to carbon markets, to say, "Well, if so far we have understood this tool in certain terms, now we need to apply those other terms and really see whether this holds up." And the key findings from the ICJ were that all states must put in place their, all their available means to prevent further significant harm to the climate system, understood as part of the environment, and therefore part of the ocean, of nature and soil, for instance, and as part of also protection of human rights.

That obligation must be in line with our best available science and must be an obligation that keeps increasing, that is aligned with each state's highest possible ambition, and that's not just an [00:19:00] aspiration. That is in itself part of a legally binding obligation. So, again, for the countries who are, have been historically most responsible for climate change, who also have most financial and technological resources, that bar is really high to justify whether to use, say, carbon credits with all the faults that are still questioning their effectiveness as opposed to other action that we know would be effective, and that's really the phasing out of fossil fuels at home and abroad.

The other point of the advisory opinion is how international cooperation needs to be reflective of the highest level of ambition of developing countries, and particularly the countries who have been least responsible for climate change and most affected by it. And so, again, offering to developing countries carbon credits as opposed to direct finance for their chosen approaches to climate mitigation and adaptation must be also questioned in that [00:20:00] light.

 Tell us a little bit about the process of this report and all your reports. Like who did you talk to? Who helped you on this?

And then, what happens to this work? Like where do your findings go, you know I guess in the UN system to other governments? So where could this work be helpful?

 There's always an open call for written inputs, so I outline the kind of questions I want to investigate in the report.

I usually rreceive a significant amount of inputs, around 100, and that's from states, from research institutions and academics, from civil society organizations, and also from organizations of individuals and communities who have been affected by climate change. So anyone can submit a written input.

And then on top of that, I do my own research, my own independent literature reviews of the science. What I find really important is to look not only at climate science, but also at the science on biodiversity, on political [00:21:00] ecology, on human health impacts, and really bring all of that together and see how the lived experiences of those who have been negatively impacted, in this case by some carbon credits project are aligned with the best available science.

So what, what is being felt at the frontline of what we're doing wrong with our climate approaches often is also what we're being recommended by scientists working from different angles on these issues. And this is really important to then show to states both individually and in their international fora that, you know, missing out, not listening to the voices of those who are most affected also means missing out on understanding what the best available science means when it's connected across areas of science and when it is understood in context.

And eventually there are specific recommendations that then states should take up in their own lawmaking, in their own budgeting, and in their own relations with one another in terms [00:22:00] of international cooperation or negotiations of new instruments or the work of international financial institutions.

And so formally, I'm mandated to report either to the Human Rights Council or to the UN General Assembly, which is, for instance, where the carbon credits report will be discussed. But I usually try and have several other conversations. I'll be attending the climate COP. I'm usually in other multilateral fora.

I've been invited to the Food and Agriculture Organization to discuss with them if and how carbon credits can be led by Indigenous peoples and peasants and can work according to their worldviews.

 And I think all these dialogues count and can see how the report becomes a basis for hopefully a different kind of conversation — more open, more inclusive, with the benefit of the evidence that's been brought together and aligned for states and anyone else who's in power, including advisors to have [00:23:00] the right conversation we need.

 I mean, I can imagine you getting pushback on some of your work, considering that your focus is really on defossilization and not decarbonization.

 Yeah, and that's been also very interesting to see the evolution. I think there are still some countries who believe that decarbonization is, you know, what we are on the path to do, what's been politically accepted, where we're making progress. And so maybe challenging that notion with the idea of defossilization may risk undermining some of the hard-won progress in that connection.

And I think when I receive that kind of pushback the opportunity is to clarify and to say, well, we need decarbonization, but we have to make sure that that's not leading to other ways in which we remain dependent and in fact continue to expand production and use of fossil fuels.

And I think things become more comprehensible and more acceptable when indeed we go beyond climate science and we [00:24:00] bring the human, you know, science and human health, how defossilization has been called time and again by the global medical profession, by the World Health Organization on health grounds alone, on top of the reasons we have for combating climate change. And that becomes, I think, more relatable to people.

It may become also less politicized and show that there are benefits that cut across areas where all political parties would agree. Healthy food, affordable living, it's not something that you know, across the political spectrum we can really object to as long as we have a very clear understanding of how these things are linked together.

 Yeah, we've talked about this before, right? The why it matters part of it, you know. This sort of tunnel vision on CO2 or other very narrow science findings or targets really doesn't do justice to why it matters, right? And like you said, there is this [00:25:00] mountain of evidence on the negative impacts on health at every stage of the life cycle, from pregnancy through to old age, right? And the impact on education, our ability to learn, impact on our food systems, all of those things. And yet, you know I think we're coming — the climate negotiations world is coming a bit late to that, right? There's been this tunnel vision on what's been politically acceptable, like you say on these very narrow targets and on mitigation. It seems that that's partly why we're in the mess that we're in at this point.

 You know, at the start of the regime, there was a hope that maybe this approach, very technocratic approach could work — that simplification also to make such a global and, at the time, very abstract problem manageable. But I think where we are now, we've seen it has made some progress, but not enough.

And what we're seeing now is that, of course, now climate change has become experienced by everyone on the planet. I [00:26:00] think after this summer in Europe, I don't think anyone is in doubt about what climate change is and how much it is present in our lives and how it's threatening the very fabric of our day-to-day lives.

And I think that the limitations of that approach must be fully acknowledged, and we're not quite there. At the same time, however the science has progressed, and I think maybe an area of science that's really important is all the science on climate disinformation and obstruction. So we have now an understanding of how the fossil fuel industry and other industries who have vested interest, the petrochemical companies, the largest food and beverage companies whose profits are dependent on continued fossil fuels, and big tech increasingly as well — they have taken very specific, well-resourced, evolving approaches to keep us away from that understanding that not prioritizing the phase-out of fossil [00:27:00] fuels will never really lead us towards a safer climate.

And I think that understanding and all the evidence that we have of what the companies have done, the techniques they have used, the extent to which they have influenced unduly with their own commercial interest, our democratic processes from local to national to international level all of that, I think, was not quite there, but it is now, and we can't take that out of the equation.

And that's the only way for us also to be able to finally jump a few steps ahead of the industry and be able to take a more proactive and ultimately effective approach to the climate crisis.

 On that I wanted to just ask you about your last report, which was on food systems. And I'm going to put that report and the latest one in the show notes for people to look at further. But thinking about that work and this carbon markets investigation that you did, what are the common trends or themes that you find? You've mentioned disinformation, obstruction. Like, you know, when you think about the winners and the losers and the obstacles, what are the common themes that you found between the food systems work and the carbon markets report that you just put out?

 Yeah, what's interesting is that that understanding actually came from separate work that the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, had been doing in the last few years. So it's coming from a different area of human rights. But he has been documenting how we are facing an unprecedented concentration of corporate power in food systems.

We're facing an unprecedented accumulation of land that we've never seen before. And of the 10 top landowners in the world, one is a carbon credits entity, another is a fossil fuel company. And so what that means is, again, that instead of thinking about climate change as a technical problem of fixing our energy systems, what the food systems are showing us is that it's a [00:29:00] problem of unlimited corporate power that has been, for a very long time, not sufficiently regulated, has gone unaccounted and unaccountable to all the harm that it has caused, which are both environmental harm, health harm, and human rights harm, and has reached a level of power — economic, technological, of actual power — over the resources that are essential for our survival that needs to be seen as the root cause of all the multiple crises we're facing, including economic inequality.

But unfortunately, in our conversation, we look at the symptoms and the multiple crises separately from one another, spreading ourselves very thin, as opposed to keep following those identifiable economic actors who are very well linked with one another, vertically integrated, making their own profit-making plans on the basis of the public subsidies that still fossil fuels are receiving, plastic production is [00:30:00] receiving, industrialized food production is receiving, while harming our climate system to the point we are at, while harming our health to the point where we have younger and younger people with cancer, more non-communicable diseases, fossil fuels across our bodies, in our brains, in our reproductive organs, with all the negative impacts you mentioned.

And all of that is an externalized cost for those very same companies who are also in very well-documented patterns of disinformation, obstruction, and undermining of our democratic processes.

So I think that that's the work that we need to do, and we can't ignore that understanding of which economic actors are behind and are developing further ways to benefit economically, even, from some climate solutions, while protecting the fossil fuel-based economy that has allowed them to flourish at the expenses of the planet and our wellbeing.[00:31:00]

 I mean, these economic elites that you mention in the food system, in the climate solutions world, but, I think would be remiss not to at least mention the rise in data centers and artificial intelligence and social media and mainstream media. I mean, these are the same power structures, the same economic actors that are really dominating every sphere of our life, right?

From information to what we eat to, I mean, to everything, right? To our experience of every experience in life that we're having. And like you say, if we continue to think about these as isolated industries or areas, we are falling down a trap, right?

It's about how these things are interconnected. And that's how we need to approach things in a systemic structure way, right?

 But it is difficult, to be fair. You know, every report I prepare, it's such a learning curve for me. There's so many moments where I think, "I, [00:32:00] I can't believe I didn't know this." And I think, you know, they're so good at hiding in plain sight, you know? The fact that we had 60 or more years of climate disinformation led by fossil fuel companies, led by the 15 biggest meat and dairy companies, not even, you know, withdrawing from public information the fact that they're using so many toxic substances that are so harmful to us, including, forever chemicals, for instance.

And they're just one layer of harm that somehow they've been allowed to cause to us because of that lack of sufficient regulation and oversight. And then the link with big tech is quite complex to tease out. We see more and more reliance on climate-smart approaches, which are all very dependent on digitalization and AI.

But again, who is thinking about the physical impact of those growing data centers, their energy demand, their water demand, their own contributions to the fossil fuel-based economy? These are [00:33:00] all kind of dots that are connected, but it's not quite clear to see the overall picture. There's also links to the military industrial complex, and yet this seems, oh, well, this is an area that's separate from you know, climate policy or, you know, food systems, and yet we see — now we see now that they're all interconnected. The crisis of the Hormuz Strait has, has showed to us in our daily lives. The prices of food have gone up. Why? Because of fertilizers. What are fertilizers made of? Fossil fuels. And why are we all dependent on food systems that are so heavy on fertilizers?

That is not by chance, and it's not good for our health, and yet we are trapped in this system. And even regions that are so far away from the area of conflict are deeply, deeply harmed by those global interconnections, these entanglements, deep entanglements in the fossil fuel-based economy.

 I just wanted to finish off by, well, talking about climate diplomacy. COP31 is going to be held in Turkey this [00:34:00] November. It's co-hosted by Turkey and Australia. I don't wanna talk about COP actually. I wanted to talk to you about the Transition Away From Fossil Fuels Conference. The first one was held in April this year. You and I were both there in Santa Marta in Colombia. I think we shared some of the highs and lows of that that process.

The second one is hopefully going to be next year and it's going to be co-hosted by the Pacific Islands and Ireland. And I just wondered, how, how would you hope that the second Transition Away from Fossil Fuels Conference will build on the first? What would you like to see change or expand or lose for the next

 Mm-hmm. So I think the first one was very remarkable in that so many states engaged in a very open, explicit conversation about fossil fuels. I still think that the first conference was too focused on phasing out fossil fuels from the energy sector as opposed to thinking more in terms of economy-wide and that attention to [00:35:00] petrochemicals and the growing demand for fossil fuels in all their forms in our food systems.

So I'm hoping that a more holistic approach to defossilization will be framing the second conference. I also hope that we'll have more inclusiveness and participation, more clarity in the terms of engagement of different experts and human rights holders. Certainly Santa Marta was a big experiment and, it has been in a way very remarkable how it's brought together very quickly after the disappointment of COP30 and not being able to have an outcome on fossil fuels.

But now that we have a benefit of time, we need to have a clearer understanding of how different voices, including from human rights experts that can bring that understanding of the underlying political economies of the crisis and potential solutions that are more aligned with human rights, can come into play — and in fact, have an explicit conversation about human rights and about the [00:36:00] obligations clarified by the ICJ advisory opinion, which was also not quite something that we were able to do in Santa Marta.

That said, maybe if I can take thirty seconds, I would still say that while there is kind of an, a disengagement or a lowering of expectations around COP31, we do need to keep up those expectations up and hold COP accountable. We need an outcome from the mitigation track, which has not been delivering for a long while. There's even discussion about closing it down. We can't have an international climate regime that is not seriously delivering on mitigation. And crucially, we need a meaningful decisions under the food systems track, particularly because the food systems is not only the second cause of climate change, of emissions, but it's also the sector that may be driving even more than energy that demand for fossil fuels, including for petrochemicals.

So we need that deliverance, or we need otherwise to take account of whether [00:37:00] there will not be a satisfactory outcome after COP31 and make our own decisions in that light.

 Well, thanks very much, Elisa Morgera, UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change. Thanks for joining us on The Spill. The next episode will drop next Friday, and you can hear it wherever you hear usually hear Drilled. Thank you and bye.

Transcription

Drilled global climate justice reporter Nina Lakhani interviews Elisa Morgera, the UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change about Morgera’s latest report on the fundamental shortcomings of credit markets. Posed as a solution to the climate crisis, carbon credit markets have for years failed to deliver, while violating the human rights of the people most impacted by the climate crisis. Meanwhile, states have developed carbon tunnel-vision, fixating on schemes to reduce carbon emissions, while avoiding the root cause of the issue: fossil fuels. Lakhani and Morgera discuss all that and more.

Elisa Morgera's latest report on rethinking carbon markets. 

https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a81217-rethinking-carbon-credits-according-climate-and-human-rights

Elisa's report on transforming food systems. 

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/06/transforming-food-systems-key-protecting-climate-and-human-rights-says-un

Diana Taremwa-Karakire's recent piece for Drilled on a Kenyan carbon credit project.


Nina Lakhani’s analysis on the Santa Marta climate conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels. 

https://drilled.media/news/santa-marta-analysis

More reporting on the failures of carbon markets. 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/06/carbon-offsetting-market-collapses-what-happens-to-the-forests-they-hoped-to-protect-aoe?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Carbon Credit Markets Have a Human Rights Problem | The Spill

Drilled A true-crime podcast about climate change, hosted by investigative journalist Amy Westervelt. Listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts .

A true-crime podcast about climate change, hosted by investigative journalist Amy Westervelt. Listen here, or 

A true-crime podcast about climate change.

Drilled

40b7d92169f7e9a5355776ad0e3dbe3c806861ebd114bbe84e00804150e1917a

Carbon Credit Markets Have a Human Rights Problem | The Spill

About This Episode

Transcript