What are Black Carbon and short-lived climate pollutants?

Black carbon and other short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) are by-products of burning diesel, coal, firewood, and crop residue. The negative impacts of short-lived climate pollutants are both extensive and fast-acting. Black carbon – or ‘soot’ – increases the melting of ice and glaciers, harms public health, threatens food security and disrupts weather patterns.

Mitigating short-lived climate pollutants, such as black carbon, has historically been de-prioritised as most organisations focused on reducing CO2. However, recent studies show that black carbon may be responsible for close to 20% of the planet’s warming, making it the second highest contributor to climate change. More companies are now making commitments to reducing SLCPs either through the Climate & Clean Air Coalition or We Mean Business.

Black carbon: a climate factor responsible for 20% of global warming

Gold Standard improved cookstove and heating technologies can reduce the emission of black carbon and other SLCPs. See the methodology>>

Why finance black carbon and short-lived climate pollutant reductions?

Reducing SLCPs has an immediate benefit on climate mitigation at a local level and is associated with a host of other positive impacts. It allows a project funder to accurately report on the full climate benefits compared to purchasing Emission Reductions (or carbon credits) alone. By financing these impacts, you are supporting projects that provide an immediate and measurable impact on mitigating climate change at a local level. In addition, that finance helps drive the implementation of more efficient cooking and heating technologies to broader populations.

What can be claimed?

A Gold Standard Certified SDG Impact Statement quantifies the amount of black carbon and other SLCPs reduced from an intervention in a given year.

A project and its funders may claim to have financed Black Carbon Equivalent (BCe) emission reductions from improved cookstove technologies or clean burning fuels. This represents a contribution to meeting the Paris Agreement as well as Sustainable Development Goal 13 by financing a direct and quantifiable impact on climate change mitigation that is monitored, verified and certified by Gold Standard. In your communications, you may also describe the contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals that the project you supported has also delivered.

For credibility, companies should always first commit to ambitious internal GHG and black carbon or other SLCP emission reduction targets. Gold Standard recommends setting a Science Based Target for GHG emission reductions and making commitments to reduce SLCPs through the Climate & Clean Air Coalition.

SDG 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

Developed with support from:

The methodology was developed in collaboration with Project Surya, The Energy and Research Institute (TERI), Berkeley Air Monitoring Group, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, Nexleaf Analytics and the University of California at San Diego, with funding from the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) as part of the Reducing SLCPs from Household Cooking and Domestic Heating initiative and with extensive input from experts from the scientific and development finance communities.

For more information about black carbon and its effects, please visit: the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (CCAC) website.

Read an overview about our work with black carbon and other short-lived climate pollutants>> and more:

• Associated Press: Push for cleaner stoves in poor countries to cut pollution

• Ecosystem Marketplace: Emerging from the darkness – new process aims to tackle black carbon

• Marketing Green Blog: Innovative black carbon certificates fuel traditional cookstove replacement

• Press release: Pioneering methodology for tackling black carbon

• The process behind developing our new black carbon methodology