Amanda Leland’s Post

Greenwashing Cracks? Companies that pledged to be bastions of sustainability are backtracking on ambitious environmental goals. Is the fight against climate change losing momentum? Read more to find out. https://on.ft.com/4eE4RkY

I'd appreciate your thoughts on this - #carbon #offsets: a load of BS, or an effective tool to tackle #climate #change? Here are 2 conflicting perspectives (I'm sure amongst many others). “Study after study has indicated that most offsets available on the market don’t reliably reduce #emissions, and yet offsets are now the backbone of the #environmental policies of many of the biggest #polluters on the planet.” “But exactly how offsets are bullshit is really interesting... “because it’s easy to say that you are reducing carbon emissions but it is much harder to prove it. And the truth is, there aren’t many checks and balances in place to prevent abuse.” These are comments from John Oliver piece in the Guardian from Last Week Tonight in 2022. https://lnkd.in/gbty6c6U And then the #SBTi (a highly recognised body for supporting meaningful #science-based carbon reductions) recently decided that it will consider recognizing environmental attribute certificates, including carbon #credits, for #abatement purposes in tackling value chain emissions, which this article notes as "a significant milestone in the global battle against climate change" - primarily because it will enable more #finance to tackle climate change. So who's right, and why? Please share your thoughts as a comment below.

Kudos to Abigail Bassett and Climatebase for the excellent explainer on carbon offsets and the new Biden administration framework. 3 Key takeaways: 1. We cannot abandon private sector financing of SDG projects. Bravo to the administration's attempts to re-establish U.S. leadership in global climate efforts. We need to embrace a range of climate change strategies beyond domestic regulation and public funding. 2. Not "throwing the baby out with the bath water" - While the Biden administration's carbon offset guidelines are not perfect and face valid criticisms, they demonstrate a willingness to explore innovative policy tools and leverage private sector resources to tackle climate change. 3. Establishing standards for high-integrity offsets can help combat greenwashing - Offset projects that drive real, additional emissions reductions can lead to substantive sustainable impact. This nuanced position acknowledges the complexity of the challenge and the need for pragmatic solutions that engage multiple stakeholders. Are the days of unilateral approaches that promote domestic fossil fuel industries without consideration for international collaboration or market-based solutions behind us? I hope so. https://lnkd.in/eMdeyXd3 #sustainability #carbonoffsets #solutions #SDGs

The voluntary market for carbon credits has come under scrutiny for a lack of transparency. Some even argue that, by buying carbon offsets, corporations are given a free pass to claim they are working toward climate targets without reducing emissions from their own operations. However, financing carbon offsets may be critical in slowing climate change on the timeline needed. In this article, we examine the effectiveness of carbon offsets and how to make them better products with superior underlying data. https://lnkd.in/gcQwMsJC #carbon #carboncredits #carbonoffsets

I believe if you can’t explain an idea to a 10 year old then you don’t understand the subject well enough yourself. This is a classic case of mix and matching a bunch of quite different things in the climate change mitigation space into a single article with a whole bunch of jargon and a few dramatic quotes which leaves the reader confused and casts a shadow on the entire space. You’d have to be deep in the voluntary carbon market to understand the various nuances. Articles like these do nothing for the climate, by all means expose bad actors, educate your readers on the importance of reducing emissions, switch to renewables and carbon dioxide removal as set out by the IPCC. Don’t deliberately cause chaos, if you aren’t helping stop getting in the way.

A new report from Climate Integrity has found: ❌ Ten of Australia’s best-known corporations have no clear plans to stop using or supporting fossil fuels despite having targets to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions 🌳 The companies were also failing to report clearly the impact of their businesses on the climate warming caused directly or indirectly from land clearing 📊 Companies had aligned themselves with a “plethora of frameworks, assessments, standards and disclosure requirements” that were mostly voluntary but none of the 10 Australian companies had a “comprehensive, independently verified and fully costed plan for reducing their emissions” that was in line with a scientifically credible pathway to decarbonise quickly enough to keep global heating to 1.5C. The companies were assessed against guidelines laid out in late 2022 by a UN expert group after broad concerns that corporate climate pledges were often vague, inconsistent, incomplete, over-reliant on offsets and in some cases amounted to greenwashing. "There’s no clear standard or shared understanding among companies of what [a credible net zero plan] should look like....The lack of scientific alignment with the need to rapidly phase out fossil fuels is particularly concerning, without commitments to phase out fossil fuels, it is difficult to see how net zero pledges can be fulfilled.” Read the full report: https://lnkd.in/eUEJhaU3 Claire Snyder https://lnkd.in/eG-Uq4AN #climateaccountability #climateintegrity

The Climate Action 100+ Net Zero Company Benchmark scores assessing Australian company climate disclosures are out today at https://lnkd.in/gY_RQe3q. Company decarbonisation commitments and disclosures are improving, but plans and actions still fall well short of what is required to align with the 1.5 degree Paris goal. In particular, climate is not adequately being factored into capital allocation decision frameworks, and companies are not yet planning for a just transition, with adequate provisions for workers and community stakeholders impacted by their decarbonisation. As per my comments in this article, I am hopeful that the sector decarbonisation plans promised by the Australian government provide more certainty to unlock greater ambition, but investors and companies must engage in their development to ensure they are credible and useful. #CA100+ #IGCC #decarbonisation #netzero

Climate solutions need to go beyond carbon/emissions to address the wider environmental distress, Vishal Kumar and I write for the Alliance magazine: "...narratives shape our understanding of complex dilemmas and problems, and by extension, define our approach to their solutions. The prevailing climate narrative, which focuses on carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions, has led the world to make commitments on capping emissions and chart out net-zero futures. The imperative now is to broaden the climate narrative for a collective global acknowledgement of the wider environmental distress, and for solutions to emerge." https://lnkd.in/gajGt-ie

🌿 Good News for Carbon Markets! 🌿 The U.S. government’s recent embrace of carbon offsets is a significant step toward promoting a strong and sustainable carbon market. Despite controversies surrounding these mechanisms, their potential impact on climate change mitigation cannot be ignored. 🔗 Read the full article: U.S. Government Embraces Carbon Offsets (https://lnkd.in/erwJ-rZ4) Let’s continue supporting initiatives that drive environmental integrity and combat climate change! 🌎💚 #ClimateAction #CarbonOffsets #Sustainability

Improving the global voluntary carbon credit markets: The CCAG report suggests that ongoing reforms and new standards could mobilise billions of dollars of private money to support projects that actively reduce carbon emissions and provide a large range of co-benefits for communities and their surrounding environment. The world needs voluntary carbon markets to achieve their potential in scale, impact and fitness for purpose, in order for them effectively help combat the climate crisis.