This website, Carbon Paradox, launched in December 2024. It addresses 24 paradoxes of carbon markets and considers the nuanced issues that could prevent or enable its scaling. Making interesting reading for all market stakeholders, the website covers topics including baselines, additionality, perfection and standards.
In December 2024, The Nature Conservancy summarised the progress toward finalising Article 6 during COP29 to establish rules for international carbon markets under the Paris Agreement. The guidance details the operationalisation of Articles 6.2 and 6.4 which enable countries to scale up mitigation and mobilise climate finance for Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The document highlights tasks for the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body and anticipates future refinements to the framework.
The Nature Conservancy updated its resource on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement following developments before the UN’s COP29 in Baku. Published in October 2024, this resource explains the differences between Article 6.2, and 6.4. It also explores the relationship between Article 5 of the Paris Agreement and Article 6. It writes that although Article 5 recognises the importance of forests, it is not a financial mechanism.
The UK government shared six principles for voluntary carbon and nature markets in November 2024. This policy paper encourages entities to use credits in addition to ambitious actions within value chains and sets out criteria to help identify high-integrity credits. The principles state that corporates should measure and disclose the planned use of credits as part of sustainability reporting and make accurate green claims using appropriate terminology.
Gold Standard’s tracker is intended to enhance the transparency of carbon market regulations, and support governments, project developers, investors, and other market participants in navigating the evolving regulatory landscape. This ongoing project visualises carbon market regulations by country on its map and allows users to explore by country.
The highly influential report is essential reading for anyone entering the voluntary carbon market. First published in November 2022, by The United Nations’ high-level expert group on the net zero emissions commitments of non-state entities, it gives ten recommendations to help establish a clear standard and criteria for net zero. These ideas are designed to bring greater integrity, transparency and accountability to climate goals. It draws a ‘red line’ under greenwashing with its determined work to end dishonest carbon accounting and reporting.
In July 2024 The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) published a discussion paper on the SBTi’s proposed revisions to its Scope 3 requirements. WWF emphasised that it promotes, first and foremost, a reduction of value chain emissions. It restates its support for carbon credits being used to support within value chain emission reduction but only supports their use for outside value chain reduction in the case of residual emissions. However, WWF would like to see companies investing outside of their value chains to support the Global South with additional climate finance.
The EU Commission adopted the Green Claims Directive in March 2023 to prevent companies from making misleading claims about their environmental impact. This is relevant to buyers of carbon credits to ensure they abide by the Green Claims Directive when promoting their climate action.
Published in February 2023, this Abatable report is aimed at investors and companies who are currently supporting projects in the voluntary carbon market. It is intended to help them in navigating emerging policy and regulatory risks.
The Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI) delivers claims guidance to carbon credit buyers. Published in October 2021, this Roadmap set out its goals and plans to ensure high-quality carbon markets, such as its Claims Code of Practice (released in 2023).