The carbon-offsetting market has seen no shortage of controversies recently. The latest is a reminder that efforts to tackle climate change can go off the rails without the right safeguards in place.

Making up a quarter of all issued carbon credits, forest-based carbon offsets — otherwise known as “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing countries” (REDD+) projects — have been widely sold as protecting biodiversity, avoiding carbon emissions and providing benefits for local communities. Trove Research, a climate policy advisory firm, estimates that $36 billion was pumped into carbon-credit projects between 2012 and 2022, with half of that invested in the last three years.