According to David Victor, a leading carbon trading analyst at Stanford University, as many as two-thirds of the supposed "emission reduction" credits being produced by the CDM from projects in developing countries are not backed by real reductions in pollution. Those pollution cuts that have been generated by the CDM, have often been achieved at a stunningly high cost: billions of dollars (or pounds) could have been saved by cutting the emissions through international funds, rather than through the CDM's supposedly efficient market mechanism.