Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 3/5

Friedman: Study found half of Indian wind offset projects were non-additional

Julio Friedman · A breakout year for carbon removal? · Dec 6, 2022 · at 19:07

Julio Friedman, Chief Scientist at Carbon Direct, discusses quality issues and non-additionality in existing carbon offset markets.

0:00 / 0:12exact quote · 12.2s

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“There was a study done recently in India. They found half of the wind projects that were built there were not additional at all. That means half of them were just nothing. The other half were credible avoided emissions.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

A recent study found that half of the wind energy offset projects built in India were not additional.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

Julio Friedman accurately described the findings of a widely discussed November 2021 working paper by Raphael Calel, Jonathan Colmer, Antoine Dechezleprétre, and Matthieu Glachant titled 'Do Carbon Offsets Offset Carbon?'. The study evaluated Indian wind farms under the UNFCCC Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and determined that at least 52% (299 out of 577 tested projects) were non-additional—meaning they would have been built regardless of the offset subsidy.

In November 2021, researchers from Georgetown, UVA, LSE, and MINES ParisTech published 'Do Carbon Offsets Offset Carbon?' analyzing over 1,300 Indian wind projects participating in the CDM.
The study established that at least 52% of carbon offsets issued to Indian wind projects went to non-additional projects that would have been developed without offset revenues.
The 52% figure was widely cited in energy policy briefs and economic reviews between late 2021 and 2022 prior to the December 2022 podcast statement.

Checked against

[1] aeaweb.org [2] lse.ac.uk [3] repec.org [4] ifo.de [5] voxdev.org [6] isid.ac.in [7] wordpress.com [8] everycrsreport.com

"wind" "India" "additionality" offset CDM study 50% OR "half" Calel Colmer Dechezlepretre Grover India wind additionality Calel wind energy offset India additional OR non additional Calel India CDM wind additionality study

assessed as of 2026-09-02

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

India wind projects

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Friedman: Study found half of Indian wind offset projects were non-additional

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