'Carbon credits could help fight climate change—if we use them right.' 📝 Gabrielle Walker and Bruno Giussani
Carbon markets should be a fire hose for directing money where it’s genuinely needed in the climate crisis. But that will only happen if we rethink how we are using carbon credits. Instead of seeing them as a way to wash away climate “sins,” we should focus on the outcomes we are trying to achieve. That’s because different outcomes need different incentives.
There are three main outcomes that the carbon markets could address to enable meaningful climate action:Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and. Many people still think of these interchangeably, as a generic “offset.” But only by differentiating them based on their distinct outcomes can we effectively steer carbon-market money in the right direction. It’s useful to consider them one by one.
But from a climate perspective this has only a partial effect; if I emit a metric ton of CO2, and pay someone not to emit their ton, my ton is still in the air. What’s more, because these are typically cheap , they can be a license to keep polluting—a company can be tempted to just buy a load of credits rather than investing in reducing its own emissions.
However, reduction credits can help reduce overall fossil-fuel-related emissions by funding clean infrastructure, especially in the Global South. The countries that have done the least to cause climate change are already the most damaged by its impacts and have the least resources to develop a resilient low-carbon infrastructure. And develop they must.
For this we need “protection credits.” They would give credit for preventing the release of one metric ton of carbon from an existing natural sink. As with reduction credits, it doesn’t make sense to use these as “offsets,” as they don’t neutralize existing emissions. But it is still essential to put money into protecting natural carbon stores such as forests, as well as
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