Up Energy Improved Cookstoves Programme, Uganda – CPA No 026 supported by Republic of Korea

Audit Analysis

The Up Energy Improved Cookstoves project in Uganda demonstrates solid additionality (combined test confirmed by the VVB) and a quantified 5% leakage deduction, but suffers from a critical discrepancy in claimed emissions reductions (a factor-of-five gap between the monitoring report and the ex-ante lifetime estimate), an unaddressed permanence risk for cookstove reversion, and dual-channel exposure through CORSIA eligibility. The project is moderately well-documented with 13 source files, yet several contradictions across documents undermine confidence in the reported figures.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠The monitoring report (Dec 2022) reports 600,815 tCO₂e while the ex-ante lifetime estimate and the 2024 appendix both state 113,098 tCO₂e — a 5.3× discrepancy that cannot be reconciled from the available documents and raises serious over-crediting risk.
• ⚠Permanence risk is unaddressed: no buffer pool is stated and reversal events are explicitly 'not addressed' in the verification report, despite cookstoves having a finite service life and a realistic risk of reversion to open-fire cooking.
• ⚠CORSIA eligibility is confirmed while CCP status is not mentioned, creating potential dual-channel crediting exposure.
• ⚠The usage monitoring method is described as 'annual survey' in the verification report but 'self-report' in the 2025 validation report, creating ambiguity about the robustness of the monitoring approach.

Credit Vintages Exhausted