WASHINGTON AND LONDON: Today, the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets formally launched the Development & Implementation Phase, with a newly formed Advisory Board and three Working Groups. This is building on the significant progress made in the Design Phase, which culminated in the blueprint published on January 27th. Many of the participants from that phase will continue to play an active role over the coming months.
The Advisory Board consists of more than 10 senior individuals from civil society, investor alliances and academia (incl. CDP, the Environmental Defense Fund, High Tide, the Rocky Mountain Institute, the University of Oxford, the World Resources Institute and others). Pooling their diverse perspectives and expertise, the Advisory Board will provide input to the Working Groups. They will also challenge them on cross-cutting topics, such as directing funds to emerging climate technologies.
The three Working Groups have membership from organizations with deep subject matter expertise across the value chain. Participants include suppliers, verifiers, standard setters, intermediaries, investors, buyers and civil society. These Working Groups have been set up to advance the thinking and build further consensus behind some of the most critical recommendations put forward in the Design Phase:
- Governance: Identify key governance gaps in the voluntary carbon market, recommend how they can be filled by either new or existing governance bodies, and outline potential ways any new governance body could be established
- Legal principles & contracts: Develop standard contract mechanics and corresponding contract templates to enable trades of carbon credits
- Credit level integrity: Mature the Core Carbon Principle threshold standard, in order to increase the quality of carbon credits
The Taskforce will remain closely engaged with other efforts in the market, for example those that are addressing questions around the environmental robustness of offsets, corporate claims, demand and supply scale up and corresponding adjustments. The Taskforce will run a public consultation on this next stage of its work in spring, before publishing its next round of recommendations in the summer.
Paula DiPerna, Special Advisor, and Nicolette Bartlett, Global Director of Climate Change at CDP, said: “The work of the Task Force on governance should be vital to making sure that voluntary carbon markets meet their mission of helping accomplish credible environmental progress and transparent price discovery.”
Kelley Kizzier, Vice President for Global Climate at the Environmental Defense Fund, said: “High-quality carbon credits can play an important role in the path to net-zero emissions. We look forward to working with this group to help ensure that the voluntary carbon market results in credits of the highest quality and makes a credible contribution to global climate action.”
Jules Kortenhorst, Chief Executive Officer of the Rocky Mountain Institute, said: “RMI is excited to engage on the Advisory Board and help ensure this important work supports a dynamic, global carbon market including offsets and direct decarbonization. Harmonizing accounting practices and leveraging digital technologies will ensure both nature-based and real economy solutions can be harnessed at-scale to hold the world below 1.5 degree Celsius warming.”
Myles Allen, Professor of Geosystem Science and Director of Oxford Net Zero at the University of Oxford, said: “It is virtually certain we will generate more carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels than we can afford to dump in the atmosphere and still meet our climate goals. Carbon markets, both voluntary and mandatory, could play a vital role incentivising both emissions reductions and carbon dioxide removal and durable storage: but only if human incentives are aligned with the right geophysical outcomes. Markets exist to serve the needs of their customers: and the ultimate customers here are ‘the great globe itself and all which it inherit’, not corporations seeking to meet short-term sustainability goals.”
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About the Taskforce:
The Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets, launched by Mark Carney, UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance, is chaired by Bill Winters, Group Chief Executive, Standard Chartered and sponsored by the Institute of International Finance (IIF) under the leadership of IIF President and CEO, Tim Adams. Annette Nazareth, Senior Counsel at Davis Polk and former Commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, serves as Operating Lead for the Taskforce, and McKinsey & Company provides knowledge and advisory support.