COMMENT: The next ETS arriving at Platform 4…
Now that EU ETS compliance is over with for another year, the market can metaphorically wash its hands and move on to the next course of this never-ending feast of carbon: the start of the UK ETS. The world’s newest carbon market is set to kick off, with both the inaugural free allocation and first auctions imminent. But where will UKAs price?
Read MoreCOMMENT: Assessing co-benefits in the voluntary carbon market
The private sector Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets (TSVCM) has collectively arrived at a solution for what ‘co-benefits’ should count as part of a carbon credit. It believes this will help maintain quality in the market, increase transparency and also create a mechanism to develop an appropriate pricing benchmark for these ‘co-benefits’, according to Chris Leeds of Standard Chartered.
Read MoreECOSYSTEM MARKETPLACE – Claims+Credibility: Embracing Diversification to Scale Carbon Markets
If total greenhouse gas emissions in new or updated country plans offer a mere 0.5% reduction, greater ambition is needed from governments to fill this gap. Can a robust voluntary carbon market play an important role in this context?
Read MoreCOMMENT: “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”
The EU carbon market’s compliance season is almost over. A large proportion of industrials have by now completed their 2020 purchases, and the market seems to be on the verge of crossing €45/t at the same time. So we turn to the question of “what next?” Here are some of the factors that carbon reporter Alessandro Vitelli thinks are at play.
Read MoreCOMMENT: Climate action claims are the new frontier for robust carbon accounting
Instruments to reduce emissions need to be clearly ranked for their environmental integrity and associated with robust claims that provide an accurate representation of the impacts achieved, argues Marion Verles of SustainCERT, adding that having civil society formulate a consensus on what can and can’t be done with offsets would go a long way in reassuring corporates and citizens that the market is trustworthy.
Read MoreECOSYSTEM MARKETPLACE – Shades of REDD+: The Risk of Diverting Carbon Finance from Nature to Technological Carbon Removals
Increasingly, engineered carbon removal technologies are pitched against nature-based solutions to tackle the climate crisis – particularly in the voluntary carbon markets. Will forests be passed over to benefit from carbon finance – again?
Read MoreCOMMENT: The mystery of the 2006 EUA price crash
The story goes that in 2006, the first set of verified EU ETS emissions data leaked out about a week before the due date, during the annual Carbon Expo event in Cologne. The data showed that the market was massively oversupplied in Phase 1 and the market crashed on this information. But with prices crashing well before Expo, what really happened?
Read MoreMARC(U) MY WORD: Ensuring the acceptability of border carbon adjustments
EU discussion over imposing a border carbon adjustment has mostly focused on the technical design and implementation challenges raised by this complex instrument. Even the most robust design will mean little, however, if the measure fails to secure buy-in from relevant stakeholders in Europe and abroad, write Andrei Marcu of think-tank ERCST and Michael Mehling of MIT.
Read MoreCOMMENT: New claims for a new era of private sector carbon finance
The voluntary carbon market can build a common understanding for a new financing claim beyond offsetting that represents the same commitment of taking responsibility for unabated emissions by mitigating carbon beyond boundaries, writes Sarah Leugers of Gold Standard.
Read MoreCOMMENT: We’re still in – let’s align the voluntary carbon market with Paris rather than play by our own rules
Corresponding adjustments will be needed in the future whenever a carbon credit is used to offset emissions, to help ensure the promise is kept that the atmosphere is no worse off, argues Hugh Salway of voluntary carbon market certifier Gold Standard,
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