Carbon markets play an important role in firms’ and governments’ climate strategies. Carbon crediting mechanisms allow project developers to earn carbon credits through mitigation projects. Several studies have raised concerns about environmental integrity, though a systematic evaluation is missing. We synthesized studies relying on experimental or rigorous observational methods, covering 14 studies on 2346 carbon mitigation projects and 51 studies investigating similar field interventions implemented without issuing carbon credits. The analysis covers one-fifth of the credit volume issued to date, almost 1 billion tons of CO2e. We estimate that less than 16% of the carbon credits issued to the investigated projects constitute real emission reductions, with 11% for cookstoves, 16% for SF6 destruction, 25% for avoided deforestation, 68% for HFC-23 abatement, and no statistically significant emission reductions from wind power and improved forest management projects. Carbon crediting mechanisms need to be reformed fundamentally to meaningfully contribute to climate change mitigation. Carbon markets are key in climate strategies, but only 16% of carbon credits represent real emission reductions, based on a study of 2,346 projects. Reforms are needed to improve the effectiveness of carbon crediting mechanisms in addressing climate change.
The Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, is a non-profit organisation fostering co-determination and promoting research and academic study. It is linked to the German Confederation of Trade Unions (DGB).
Policies and labour movement actors in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Spain, Poland, Colombia, Mexico and the Philippines Decades have passed since science established that climate change is real and due to human activities. Some big fossil fuel companies received the first scientific reports about the negative effects on the climate of producing and
Small island developing states are currently faced with two significant challenges that are more onerous due to limited financial resources: adapting to increasing climate change risk and recovering from the pandemic. Debt-for-climate swaps provide an avenue for SIDS to address these challenges.
Global emissions scenarios play a critical role in the assessment of strategies to mitigate climate change. The current scenarios, however, are criticized because they feature strategies with pronounced overshoot of the global temperature goal, requiring a long-term repair phase to draw temperatures down again through net-negative emissions. Some impacts might not be reversible. Hence, we explore a new set of net-zero CO2 emissions scenarios with limited overshoot. We show that upfront investments are needed in the near term for limiting temperature overshoot but that these would bring long-term economic gains. Our study further identifies alternative configurations of net-zero CO2 emissions systems and the roles of different sectors and regions for balancing sources and sinks. Even without net-negative emissions, CO2 removal is important for accelerating near-term reductions and for providing an anthropogenic sink that can offset the residual emissions in sectors that are hard to abate. Current emissions scenarios include pathways that overshoot the temperature goals set out in the Paris Agreement and rely on future net negative emissions. Limiting overshoot would require near-term investment but would result in longer-term economic benefit.