Episode 1, 2 and 3 of 3: The Voluntary Carbon Offset Market

December 21, 2023

Print This Article Share it With Friends

(Climate Now) The voluntary carbon offset market (VCM) – in which customers can pay for third-parties to avoid emitting CO2 or remove it from the atmosphere on their behalf – has existed for over 30 years, and has been controversial for nearly as long. On the one hand, the VCM can provide a path for hard-to-decarbonize sectors or businesses to reach net-zero emissions goals, and it can help finance development of important carbon removal technologies, like direct air capture. On the other hand, the market is rife with opportunities for exploitation and the sale of ineffective carbon credits.

In the first of a three-part episode exploring the current and future state of the voluntary carbon offset market, Climate Now is joined by Dr. Colin McCormick, Alex Dolginow, Derik Broekhoff and Dr. Mark Trexler – four experts in the VCM space, to examine why it is so difficult to create an effective and reliable carbon offset market, and whether there is a path forward for doing so.

FEATURING:

Alex Dolginow
Head of Portfolio Diligence

Colin McCormick
Chief Innovation Officer

Derik Broekhoff
Senior Scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute

Mark Trexler
Director of Climate Change Knowledge Systems at the Climatographers

HOSTED BY:James Lawler
Climate Now Host

RUNNING TIME: 35 min READ MORE/LISTEN; includes transcript

In this episode, the first in our series, we’re digging into what the voluntary carbon offset market is, why it came about, and some of the challenges it has faced in recent years. In episode two, you’ll hear from three providers of offsets, and learn how they work and where they fit in the larger market.

Finally, in episode three of this series, we’ll take a close look at the dynamics of the market, what verification really means for offsets, and what directions the market might be going in in the future. Thanks for joining us.

To set the stage for this series, we’ll start by answering the question, what is a carbon offset? While carbon can be captured by trees, dirt, carbon dioxide sucking machines, and rocks, how does that chemical process translate to a credit that can be bought and sold on the market? In July of 2021, Climate Now released an episode titled What’s Wrong With Carbon Offsets? where we invited two carbon offset experts, Derik Broekhoff and Mark Trexler, to give us a brief history of the [00:02:00] VCM and their take on the promises and pitfalls of the market and the technology it revolves around.

Specifically, Derik Broekhoff shared a great explanation of what a carbon offset is. Here is a clip from our July 30th, 2021 episode.

Derik Broekhoff: So in the most generic sense, carbon offset is the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or the reduction in the emissions of greenhouse gases that is used to compensate for emissions that are occurring somewhere else.

So, what happens is a buyer of a carbon offset will have a certain target, let’s say, for reducing their emissions, or they have some amount of emissions that they simply cannot reduce themselves, but they want to get to a level of net zero emissions. So they go out and they pay other parties to reduce emissions or take CO2 out of the atmosphere.

And then they claim that reduction or that removal against their [00:03:00] own greenhouse gas emissions. The catch here is that in order for that kind of claim to be valid, right, there has to be a causal connection between your paying someone else to reduce emissions or remove CO2, uh, and that reduction or removal actually happening. READ MORE

Episode 2 of 3: The Voluntary Carbon Offset Market
Join us for the second of our three-part series on voluntary carbon offset markets, where we take a look at three companies that have very different strategies for removing carbon from the atmosphere. Vesta aims to increase the amount of atmospheric carbon that the ocean can absorb by infusing coastal systems with sand composed of naturally reactive minerals like olivine. Mast Reforestation generates carbon offsets by maintaining and protecting forests in wildfire-prone areas. And Climeworks uses a mechanical system to filter carbon straight from the atmosphere to sequester it underground.

For each of these companies, we will explore how their company’s carbon removal techniques work, and examine whether (and how) they can provide measurable and verifiable offsets to ensure that the carbon credits they sell are providing a viable benefit to climate mitigation.

FEATURING:

Louis Uzor
Climate Policy Manager, Climeworks

Kelly Erhart
President, Vesta

Tom Green
CEO, Vesta

Grant Canary
Founder and CEO, Mast Reforestation
HOSTED BY:

James Lawler
Climate Now Host READ MORE/LISTEN; includes Transcript

Episode 3 of 3: The Voluntary Carbon Offset Market
In January of 2023, a headline from Boston Consulting Group read: The voluntary carbon market [VCM] is thriving. Their evidence? A 4-fold increase in the value of the market in the course of a year, to a valuation over $2 billion USD and growing. Nine months later, Reuters headlined a very different take: Carbon credit market confidence ebbs as big names retreat, citing the first dip in the number of credits used by companies in at least 7 years. What was causing such rapid growth in the VCM? What caused the decline? And, what is the chance of the VCM recovering?

In the final episode of our 3 part examination of VCMs, we take a look at how these markets have evolved in terms of their growth and their efficacy, how they are operating right now, and what their future could look like. To shape our conversation, we are joined by a group of VCM buyers, sellers, consultants and skeptics: Katie Sierks (Microsoft), Laura Zapata (Clearloop), Dr. Colin McCormick and Alex Dolginow (Carbon Direct), and Dr. Joe Romm (Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media).

FEATURING:

Joe Romm
Senior Research Fellow, Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media

Katie Sierks
CDR Science and Policy Lead, Microsoft

Laura Zapata
Co-Founder, Clearloop

Alex Dolginow
Head of Portfolio Diligence

Colin McCormick
Chief Innovation Officer
HOSTED BY:

James Lawler
Climate Now Host

00:00.00 – Introduction: Climate Now host James Lawler welcomes our listeners to the third and final episode of our series on the voluntary carbon market (VCM) with an overview of previous episodes and what’s to come in this episode.

01:22.32 – Flaws in the carbon market with Dr. Joe Romm: James and Dr. Romm delve into the history of market bubbles, carbon credit fraud, and skewed incentives within the VCM.

08:17.15 – Novel carbon market approaches with Microsoft’s Katie Sierks: Katie and James discuss Microsoft’s bespoke carbon market, their criteria for effective offsets, and its applications to the VCM at large.

21:17.02 – VCM consultants with Carbon Direct’s Alex Dolginow and Colin McCormick: Colin and Alex tell James about how smaller companies engage with the VCM, the steps towards net zero, and why even less concrete carbon offsets are beneficial.

25:56.94 – Solar investment as VCM participation with Clearloop’s Laura Zapata: Laura and James talk about Clearloop’s approach to maximizing the effects of investing in new solar projects and how to quantify the carbon offset reaped by those projects.

38:30.13 – Conclusion: James concludes our series with his final thoughts on the VCM after speaking to a wide variety of guests over the course of three episodes, thanking the guests who joined us for the final episode in the series. READ MORE; includes Transcript

Related articles