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The global carbon market has evolved in recent years on the back of negotiation and application of the Kyoto Protocol. Although primarily compliance-driven, the worldwide carbon market includes an active voluntary retail arm. Still very small in comparison with the compliance segment, the voluntary carbon market nevertheless has large growth potential in the prospect of extension to countries not embraced by existing compliance regimes. Additionally, a report by Ecosystem Marketplace has found that more and more national and regional governments are resorting to voluntary carbon offsetting markets to meet emissions reduction targets. Some 21 government programmes are currently under way with nine of these having emerged in the last four years. The report profiles 13 such initiatives, of which five were set up by regional regulators - three in the United States and one each in Italy and Canada - and eight by national governments in Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Despite doubts held by a portion of consumers, companies and policymakers as to whether carbon credits are an appropriate means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, governments worldwide have incorporated voluntary climate-change solutions into their formal strategies and development tools for a low-carbon economy. Ecosystem Marketplace found that governments have moved beyond their traditional role of providing oversight for voluntary offsetting programmes to now performing services ranging from the certification of projects and development of emission-reduction methodologies to registering carbon credits and educating buyers.
Research-based data shows that there has been a great shift from scepticism about to acceptance of the voluntary carbon market as a valid complement to regulation. Three years ago, the Carbon Markets & Investors Association (CMIA) and the International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance (ICROA) convened a dialog between national governments and carbon market representatives to identify attitudes towards the voluntary carbon market. The picture to emerge was of the perception amongst most governments of a lack of market transparency, weak governance of existing standards and registries, and a poorly communicated product.
It's a fact that the voluntary carbon market has too much been characterised by an absence of publicly available market information and lack of transparency, together with concerns about the lack of credibility, all of which could hinder future investment and growth. Alongside the absence of a universal registry, an identifiable causal factor has been the range of different procedures applied to projects. Some standards and processes have been backed by credible organisations but many were not available to public scrutiny and could be substantially less rigorous. Now however there is widespread recognition that rigorous standards are critical to ensuring market credibility and providing assurance that carbon offsets put onto the market are genuine, high quality and are not double counted. This created an apparent warming in attitudes towards the voluntary carbon market.
The United States has famously failed to develop a strategy for slowing the process of or adapting to climate change, but that hasn't stopped the US states of Oklahoma, California, and Oregon from creating their own frameworks to support greenhouse gas emissions trading. These sub-national governments use offsetting tools that were developed originally as non-mandatory measures by which companies could reduce their carbon footprints. And now South Korea, South Africa and Costa Rica are not far behind these North American regional governments in looking to use non-compliance offset standards, the research company said. South Africa has indicated it could consider allowing offsets of voluntary origin for use under its proposed carbon tax, the report added.
This rapid governmental shift in attitude towards the private sector and NGO-driven market for voluntary carbon offsetting, notable in the U.S, Asia and Latin America, stands in stark contrast to Europe. EU policymakers have been long wary of some types of carbon credits, particularly those from forestry, which are banned for compliance use in the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). There is also an uneasy relationship between individual EU member states and their regional emissions trading scheme. Indeed, the governments of Italy, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are increasingly turning to voluntary carbon market mechanisms, both as a source of market innovation to pick up the slack in demand from regulated markets and to exceed formal emission reduction targets.
Emissions reduction volumes in the voluntary market used to be insignificant when compared to the compliance market and the total emissions reductions needed worldwide. However, with the current growth rates of carbon credits traded on the voluntary market, a substantially greater contribution could be realised with subsequent positive outcomes in terms of awareness and regulation.
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