Then in theory , those payments prevent carbon emissions . But how is an offset buyer to know what would have happened to the trees without that payment ? Maybe no loggers had plans to cut down that forest . Maybe the local government was already protecting it . Or maybe the ranchers just went down the road and cut down a different forest . All these questions are the reason why David Antonioli has a job .
DAVID ANTONIOLI : I ' m the chief executive officer of Verra .
SIMON : Verra certifies many of the offsets that Saez Gil and other brokers sell - nearly 70 % of all offsets sold to companies . And part of Verra ' s process involves answering those hypothetical questions about what would have otherwise happened .
ANTONIOLI : You say there ' s so many hypotheticals . I don ' t think there are that many , quite frankly . I mean , we know how many trees are on the ground , right ? We know how many get cut down . And I think that , you know , absolutely companies can be comfortable and confident that they ' re reducing emissions .
SIMON : But a study in last year ' s proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests companies can ' t be so confident . It looked at forest projects in the Brazilian Amazon , and the researchers concluded the projects were overestimating the deforestation that would have happened had they not been there by almost 60 times . I brought these concerns to Antonioli as Verra issued all the offsets .
Ten out of 12 Brazilian forestry projects that you gave your stamp of approval to didn ' t stop the deforestation they claim . That ' s what that study found . So for the corporations that have purchased offsets from these projects , did they offset their emissions ?
ANTONIOLI : Yes , I think so . I mean , there are many great studies out there looking at the impacts of projects , and we welcome them . But we shouldn ' t be throwing the baby out with the bathwater just because there was one study that identified some projects that , according to one methodology , were different than what we say .
SIMON : He says Verra uses studies like this to update their certification process . In fact , earlier this month Verra updated its rules for future forest projects . But there are lots of companies still buying offsets from those projects in Brazil , and they may not be saving as many trees as they thought . For NPR News , I ' m Julia Simon .
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