Integrity and practicality. Will accounting technicalities of voluntary carbon claims get in the way of deploying carbon finance in voluntary carbon markets that supports developing countries and communities battle poverty and invest in clean energy and transport, sustainable land use, and healthy ecosystems?

If illegal deforestation for agriculture were a country, it would be the third largest emitter in the world after China and the US.

Carbon finance is growing and countries are faced with an array of choices—including whether to pursue projects, nesting or jurisdictional REDD+, which standards to use in doing so, and what finance opportunity to pursue.  The landscape can be a confusing array of options.  In this contribution to the Shades of REDD+ series, targeted for forest countries, we try to demystify three opportunities to capture finance for jurisdictional REDD+ performance.

Verra has made critical updates to its Jurisdictional and Nested REDD+ Framework that will strengthen the ability of forest conservation and restoration efforts to contribute to global climate goals by enabling the integration of project activities with jurisdictional efforts.

Who’s buying offsets? According to the latest EM Insights on Voluntary Carbon Markets, it’s mostly European companies. Under the hood, there’s more nuance in terms of buyer preferences for specific standards, project types, non-carbon benefits, and vintages.

The first 100 days of U.S. President Biden’s administration saw a flurry of new action and commitments on climate. All of this culminated in Biden setting a target to cut emissions in half by the end of this decade. Here are six words to describe this historic announcement.

If total greenhouse gas emissions in new or updated country plans offer a mere 0.5% reduction, greater ambition is needed from governments to fill this gap. Can a robust voluntary carbon market play an important role in this context?