With commitments under the Paris Agreement falling short of what is needed to keep global temperature rises well below 2°C, there is a critical need for voluntary climate action to bridge the gap.  

To date, the voluntary carbon market has made a significant contribution to climate mitigation, but two key issues threaten its future success. First, the call to action to ‘offset’ emissions has been criticised as providing permission to ‘pollute now, offset later’, challenging the credibility of corporate offset commitments. Second, the risk of double counting will become a global challenge after 2020, as the Paris Agreement comes in to force.

Our new policy brief takes a closer look at these key challenges and proposes solutions to ensure that the voluntary carbon market remains an effective mechanism for incentivsing and leveraging voluntary climate action in the post-Paris world. You can read our full paper here>>>

Karen Holm Olsen, Senior Researcher at UNEP DTU Partnership, Gold Standard Technical Advisory Committee member, and a contributor to this paper, will be talking about these solutions and more in a session entitled “CDM and NDC – the way forward?” at the Bonn Climate Change Conference on Monday 8^th May (13.15 – 14.45, Bonn World Conference Center, Room Bonn 181). Please do join the session if you are at the conference.