40 out of 60 German climate greening endavours fraudulent

Scope and nature of the fraud

• Thread agrees this is about a specific offset mechanism (Upstream Emission Reductions, UER) for oil companies, not “German climate policy” as a whole.
• Around 40 of 60 UER projects in China are alleged to be fraudulent; volume up to ~4.5 billion EUR since 2020 is mentioned.
• Projects were used so German companies could claim large CO₂ savings abroad instead of actually cutting domestic emissions.

Responsibility: corporations, Germany, and China

• Many comments stress multinational / oil companies as primary fraud actors, including altering claims about Chinese subsidiaries.
• Others emphasize German authorities knowingly or negligently “waving through” dubious projects, despite:
  • China banning independent foreign audits.
  • A Chinese oil/gas company itself warning Berlin that documents were likely forged and data altered on the German side.
• Some argue this looks like German authorities being “in on it”; others frame it as gross incompetence and regulatory capture, not deliberate profiteering.
• China’s role is debated:
  • One view: its lack of access for inspectors structurally enables fraud.
  • Counter‑view: blaming “China” distracts from German and corporate decision‑makers.

Debate on carbon markets and UER design

• Several commenters attack the whole idea of credits for “what would have been emitted” as inherently unverifiable and fraud‑prone.
• Offsets based on counterfactuals (e.g., “we would have polluted more”) are seen as accounting tricks that don’t change real emissions.
• Alternatives suggested:
  • Charge directly for actual emissions; let bills shrink when emissions fall.
  • Use benchmarks per unit of output (kWh, ton of steel, ton‑km) as in current ETS, but many say practice has devolved into greenwashing.
• Some describe the system as “fantastically capitalist” but practically a magnet for scams; others share difficulty finding trustworthy offset projects even with good intentions.

Germany’s broader political and economic context

• The scandal is folded into wider disillusionment with German politics:
  • Austerity in the Euro crisis, mismanaged energy policy, dependence on Russian gas, and perceived incompetence of recent coalitions.
  • Anger at both center parties and populists; several say no existing party represents them.
• Others counter that quality‑of‑life indicators and OECD indices still show Germany well above average, arguing public pessimism is amplified by social‑media echo chambers and disinformation.

China, global emissions, and fairness

• Some justify funding projects in China because that’s where emissions growth is concentrated; EU emissions are portrayed as a shrinking share.
• Others respond that per‑capita emissions in China are still below many Western countries, and that Europe still has room to cut its own emissions (e.g., buildings, heating).
• Disagreement over whether absolute vs per‑capita emissions matter more, and whether it’s fair to demand stricter constraints on populous developing countries that manufacture goods for the West.

Perceptions of German parties and climate politics

• Strong criticism of multiple parties:
  • Long‑running “Merkel era” policies accused of enabling greenwashing, subsidizing fossil fuels, and delaying genuine transition.
  • Greens are attacked for alleged greenwashing and regulatory failures in this scheme; others defend them as historically central to environmental protection and unfairly scapegoated.
• Thread connects the scandal to broader concerns that climate policy is being used as a cover for corporate profiteering and corruption, which in turn fuels right‑wing populism.

Meta‑discussion about framing and discourse

• Several note the HN title is misleading:
  • Actual story is “40 of 60 fossil‑industry UER projects, mostly in China, are fraudulent,” not “40 of 60 German climate efforts.”
• Language barrier (article only in German) and reliance on machine translation are acknowledged.
• Some lament that much of the thread fixates on whether to blame China vs Germany instead of focusing on fixing domestic corruption and bad policy design.