Josep Oriol’s Post

You may have seen a letter written by a bunch of NGOs attacking carbon offsetting because they are "an excuse to continue polluting". I will not share that horrid display of lack of basic understanding of economics, and anti-market ideology. It is not worth wasting your time. I will share three facts: 🌳 Voluntary Carbon Credits ($2bn), which include credits derived from protecting the earth most important ecosystems represent less than 1% of the global emmissions (source in comments). A $100 bn market would represent less than 3% (due to price increases). 📉 The problem is that nature based credits are mainly excluded from compliance schemes. Including them would raise demand, prices and benefits to people and planet. EU compliance markets have helped reduce emmissions in factories and airlines by 37% since 05 and generated €39bn in tax, showing the principle of polluters pay (ironically anti credit activists are pro tax) (source Tea Bano ) ❌️ One of the signatories of the letter, Greenpeace, holds a lot of the blame for the shutdown of nuclear plants in Germany, the extension of coal plants for 40 years, and its dependency on Russian oil&gas. They have yet to apologise for the massive effect on climate of their campaigns of the 80s and 90s.

Ignore those who say a successful carbon market would be "an excuse to pollute". That is nonsense, as it would only cover a fraction of emmissions (much less than those we cannot avoid). We can (and should) do both: reduce AND offset emmissions. This is particularly true of those offsets which help protect the planet's most important ecosystems, the biodiversity within, and the livelihoods of the people who inhabit them. Don't forget, if deforestation was a country, it would be the third largest emitter. 📊A $100bn carbon market would reduce and avoid 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2e/year annually. About 3% of current global emissions (a paper in Nature found substantial levels of residual emissions -defined as those planned to remain after implementing net-zero- to be on average 18% of current emissions for Annex I countries) 📉It would support 12.4 million jobs in forestry, nearly 3 million in sustainable agriculture, 310,000 in renewables, and 50,000 in adjacent industries. 🌳 It would support 150 million hectares (1.5m km2), equivalent to 30% of global forest loss since 2000 and larger than Peru, or approximately 3x France or Spain. Those who criticise are letting their anti market ideology prevent their brains from doing basic math, or have more sinister motives.

Mark Carney OpEd: We must stop prevaricating and expand carbon markets. I would add one critical point: Enough with the self-flagellation. Plenty of reason to be optimistic, and there is a lot of work to do! ✅️We have the ICVCM. We have strong science-backed standards. ❌️We allow tabloid journalists (often financed by oil nations) to spread misinformation. They tout "academic articles" attacking carbon, but do not retract even after articles are proven flawed by science.  ❌️We have big NGO executives with 7 figure packages pontificating about more 'equitable distribution'. We have corporate executives with 8 figure salaries finding excuses in those articles to delay fair pricing (imagine the benefits for communities at $50/ton?). ❌️We have Verra (and others) pandering to eco-radicals whose only objective is to derail carbon. You will never appease a fanatic - they do not want 'better carbon markets', they do not believe in markets - they believe in taxes and prohibitions. ❌️We have nationalistic USA and EU politicians opposing nature based credits (e.g. REDD) in compliance markets. Why? Because money  would flow from rich countries to poor countries via private sector, without voter protectionism. Without ability to use them in foreign policy. ❌️We have newcomers, particularly some 'rating agencies' using the old Silicon Valley trick of telling VCs: "This market is broken, but we are going to fix it". Obvious trick. Nothing is broken, Sherlock - except, perhaps, your morals. ✅️Nature Based Solutions like REDD are MILES AHEAD of any industry in nature when it comes to impact.  Find a business operating in remote, rural areas that is better. Logging? Agriculture? Tourism? We invest in some of these sectors, and I can tell you that the best actors in those are miles behind a half-decent REDD developer. 🤷♀️There are bad events, as in ANY market. The Financial Times will show 500 audit scandals a year across all industries. And in carbon there will be errors, and bad actors. This does not make the carbon markets any worse than healthcare or education, where these things happen too. 📊Keep high standards. Ensure auditors work. But stop double-guessing the industry's own process. If Barclays has a case of bad accounting,or misconduct in UK, the central bank will not close all their branches - even if they are guilty. They will be fined, they will be forced to improve processes. But they will not be brought to bankrupcy. Why are we more unforgiving with an industry that is inherently more beneficial for the planet than transport, fashion, chemicals, etc? Have we gone mad? ⚡️In all this debate, I can understand (although I despise) the self-serving interests of polluters. But not the number of ideology-fuelled 'naive people' who are being played to keep the status quo. 🔥 The market will be massive, but we have no time to waste.Time to wake up. Time to get going.

There is no climate-safe future without nature. The VCM (Voluntary Carbon Market) is a key instrument to not only support climate action, but to finance the conservation of our planet's key ecosystems. And not just "tropical forests" as the article states, but also large savanas, mangroves, etc. Good summary by three conservation leaders. Thank you Jennifer Morris , M Sanjayan , Fred Krupp I still find it hard to believe that some key high integrity nature-based credits are only VCM and not accepted for the compliance markets in EU, California, Corsia, etc. Hopefully this will change soon. https://lnkd.in/ePdP4jZt

I believe there is a role to be played by ARR (Afforestation, Reforestation and Revegetation) projects, but they are of much more limited biodiversity and other ecosystem value. Ideal for buffer zones around key ecosystems thay have the right level of ecosystem integrity. When looking at NATURE based carbon, we should have a "ecosystem value" ranking (above and beyond emissions): 1st REDD carbon, 2nd grassland and wild soil carbon, 3rd ARR (if done well), 4th agro, 5th tech. There is much more at stake than just climate: Biodiversity, food and water security and rural livelihoods.

Global Carbon Pricing Revenues Top a Record $100 Billion. “Carbon pricing can be one of the most powerful tools to help countries reduce emissions. That’s why it is good to see these instruments expand to new sectors, become more adaptable and complement other measures,” said Axel van Trotsenburg, World Bank Senior Managing Director https://lnkd.in/eBUXeNQu.

"Despite repeated pledges of financial support from high-polluting nations, they haven’t delivered what they promised. And even if they did, it wouldn’t be nearly enough to support the urgent action that’s needed. That makes carbon markets a critical source of financing." Great article by Fred Krupp of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). There is a right and a wrong side of the ideological debate around Carbon Markets. Yes, make no mistake - the debate is not scientific. It confronts people who believe in the private sector and markets as an instrument for positive impact, and people who believe in state-owned resources, and have a negative view of markets. It is an old debate - one where collectivists always (wrongly) assume they have the moral upper hand. I am on the pro-makets side, although I do not believe in 100% free markets - there is a role for states and multilateral organisations. Their key role is establishing fair playing-fields, regulations and acting as referees. But the driving force, if we are to have any hope of achieving scale in our fight against climate change, biodiversity loss and rural poverty, will always depend on private sector actors.