It takes nearly a three-hour postgraduate lecture for a professor to explain the concept of carbon credits to a room full of professionals struggling to understand how this abstract financial instrument connects to the real world. Yet outside that classroom, it is rapidly becoming the currency of survival for billions of people who will live and die by the consequences of the markets' design. From drought-stricken villages of Africa to flood-battered plains of Pakistan, carbon credits may soon determine who has access to clean water and food security, and who bears the harshest climate costs.

The devil hides in the details — perhaps because men have worked tirelessly to keep it there. These tradable credits — sold by projects that claim to reduce or absorb greenhouse gases - have become the currency of climate comfort. Every tonne of carbon emitted by an airline, oil company or tech giant can be cancelled out by paying for a tree planting drive, forest protection scheme or a renewable energy........

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