Thursday, 2 July 2026

Civil society groups want investigators to examine the first carbon credits cleared under a new United Nations mechanism, saying the underlying project is tied to Myanmar's military junta and has overstated its climate benefit by a wide margin, Climate Home News reported.

The project at the centre of the dispute is a Myanmar cookstove scheme cleared to issue roughly 650,000 carbon credits by the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body in February. That regulator has signed off on just two projects to date.

Article 6.4 is the carbon-crediting mechanism built under the Paris Agreement to let countries and companies count emission cuts made abroad. Because so few schemes have cleared the process, the objections carry weight on one of the mechanism's earliest approvals.

The groups behind the complaint argue the cookstove scheme is connected to Myanmar's junta, which the UN has found responsible for human rights abuses, and that the project has inflated the emission reductions it claims to deliver.

Myanmar's military seized power from the elected government in a February 2021 coup, and fighting has torn through the country since. The Sagaing Region alone holds more than a third of the country's 3.8 million internally displaced people, according to Climate Home News.

With only two approvals on the books, how the Supervisory Body handles the challenge over these 650,000 credits will shape how it weighs human rights and additionality claims. The regulator has not responded publicly to the call for an investigation.