In the fields around this giant chemicals factory in Gujarat, the barren soil smells of paint stripper and the water from the well makes you gag. So why has it been given tens of millions of pounds of taxpayer-funded UN ‘green reward points’, which are traded hungrily on the financial markets at huge profit?
Farm worker Radha in the cotton fields beneath Gujarat Fluorochemicals. She is 40 but looks closer to 60. Since her husband died eight years ago, she's had to feed herself and six children
But this is much more than a tale of big business versus poor farmers in the Third World. GFL is part of a worldwide carbon-trading scheme, centred in London, which is supposed to be helping to save the planet from global warming. On paper the scheme, which was ratified under the Kyoto agreement and supervised by the UN, looks like an efficient way to cut global carbon emissions. However, a Live investigation has exposed a series of major failings and loopholes in the scheme.
"We can't irrigate our land with it - it's the water of death. It kills the crops we put it on..."
Meanwhile in the UK, one of our biggest industrial companies is able to claim it has off-set its own pollution by supporting GFL, yet it remains oblivious to and unconcerned about the serious accusations being made against the Indian factory. These hypocrisies aren’t isolated to GFL. The UN carbon off-setting scheme is filled with similar examples of companies with poor environmental and human rights records being financially rewarded.
The Gujarat Narmada Valley Bulldozers develop the river bank while the smoke stacks that litter the skyline pump black fumes into the air
THE GREAT CARBON CREDITS MERRY-GO-ROUND
As you dig below the surface it would appear that the UN programme – with backing and finance from Britain – is as polluted as the questionable companies it chooses so generously to reward...
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