In a 2015 report, the Stockholm Environmental Institute, sounded the alarm on risks of corruption in the UNFCCC’s Joint Implementation (JI) carbon-offset scheme. According to the paper, over three quarters of JI projects were of low environmental quality, with many amounting to outright fake projects. Corruption was particularly rife in Ukraine and Russia, where projects’ approval was not dependent on their environmental impact, “but rather on connections and side payments”, as a source told the Guardian. As UN bodies had no oversight, the scheme was open to abus: the states could transfer carbon reduction credits to wealthier countries without any external verification as to whether carbon cuts had actually been made.