The emissions credit market needs to grow 15-fold to meet goals set under the Paris Agreement, by some estimates — and could be worth as much as $50 billion by 2030.
Mark Kenber is one of the climate policy wonks trying to bring more legitimacy to the market.
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Kenber: Companies are making a lot of claims: net zero, carbon neutral, you name it.
This is what we’ve been working on.
If companies can make a carbon-neutral claim without decarbonizing, and all they do is buy offsets, that isn’t above and beyond.
Kenber: It’s shifting, but not nearly enough.
There also is the Article 6 supervisory board, the UN body charged with creating rules for carbon projects under the Paris Agreement.
For example, only use a standard where independent third-party verification is required, has a registry that is independently managed and the public has access to.
Kenber: The Science-Based Targets initiative sets out what companies should do with their Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions between now and 2050.
If it buys carbon credits to offset those emissions, our guidance will outline how they should do that and what they can say about it that’s credible.
Kenber: Yes, for two reasons: Developing countries want to host projects that generate carbon credits, but don’t want to see corporates hoover up all the easy projects that they could fund on their own.
Customers at a supermarket might be confronted with products labeled as climate-friendly, but won’t know what it means.
— Private equity is drying up for fossil fuel producers, according to Bloomberg.
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