Will Forest Carbon Markets Thrive, or Get Lost in the Woods?
For thousands of years, we have been planting and growing trees without difficulty. It’s simple, and forest carbon business strategy can be, too. In fact, it’s core to what I’m trying to teach the MBA/MS students in my course at the Erb Institute this semester: If the world’s best available technology for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is employing the natural photosynthetic capacity of natural forest management, we can too.
But in many ways, we are all unable to see the forests for the trees.
Over the past two years, the voluntary carbon market space has grown and changed rapidly. Independent assessment of carbon projects is now a must for any project developer or retailer of carbon offsets. An array of third-party audit standards has emerged to support the validation of projects and the verification of their emissions reductions for the creation of carbon credits.
How does carbon trading work? Does it really help tackle climate change? Isn’t it all just smoke and mirrors? Is the Kyoto Protocol doing any good?
These and similar questions are increasingly being asked as the evidence for global warming mounts, scientists tell us more of dramatic climatic impacts we can expect, and pressure for measures to rein in greenhouse gas emissions heightens. At the same time, there are warnings from industry over the costs in jobs, profits and consumer prices that will stem from mandatory carbon trading regulation.
Nepal, like any other developing country, now could sell carbon credits in the global market by way of reducing its contemporary deforestation and degradation rates and by way of forest conservation and enhancement. It sounds too good to be true? No, surely not.
RPT-UN panel suspends 2 more carbon emissions auditors
LONDON, March 26 - The reputation of a Kyoto Protocol carbon finance scheme was dealt another blow after a UN climate panel late on Friday suspended the third emissions cut verifier in 15 months, and partially suspended a fourth.
The Stakes of Carbon Trading Are Losing Their Sizzle
NEW YORK -- Global carbon dioxide emissions offsetting markets are fast losing their luster in the minds of investors, both in the United States and abroad.
While cap-and-trade legislation stalls in the US and Australia, Copenhagen’s limited progress holds back REDD, and the inflexibilities of the Kyoto Protocol’s CDM keeps a lid on reforestation act
Delegates at the global climate summit failed to figure out a way to stop the destruction of the world's forests. But some lawmakers think they have a solution, and it relies on financing from some of America's biggest polluters.
Several years ago three U.S. companies sank millions of dollars into a forest reserve in southern Brazil to earn credits to cover some of their carbon emissions back in America. How does the scheme work on the ground? Michael Montgomery reports in collaboration with Mark Schapiro.
