CarbonPlan

Forest offset projects are starting to use dynamic baselines to measure their impact against real forests instead of using an unobserved, modeled counterfactual. This change could improve the integrity of offsets, but data transparency remains a problem in the offsets industry. Third party observers need public project location data to evaluate whether projects lead to real climate benefits. In our latest blog post, we encourage the same players leading the way with dynamic baselines to further raise the bar by making project data public. https://lnkd.in/ggemwxui

We recently conducted a survey of CDR stakeholders to get their opinions on the role of independent protocol review. Along with collaborators at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Berkeley Lab (LBNL), we gathered responses from 26 organizations from across the CDR ecosystem, including CDR providers, buyers, standard-setters, and ecosystem actors. We found broad agreement about the potential value of independent CDR protocol review — but there seem to be some important differences in what stakeholders want from reviews and how they think the process should function. https://lnkd.in/gYa92jzw

Over the last year and a half, the carbon removal community has spent a lot of time and energy on the question of what real world activities should “count” as CDR. In a new commentary with Zeke Hausfather, we break down key points of contention, proposed definitions, and why no definition offers a perfect path forward. What makes CDR worth investing in is its potential role in a net-zero future. But the common approach of project-level carbon accounting doesn’t necessarily tell us whether a given project will actually contribute to that future. We don’t think there’s a simple definition of CDR that resolves this challenge. Liberal definitions risk justifying support for projects that don’t warrant it, while overly conservative definitions could discourage investment in approaches we may need long term. Rather than trying to settle the “what counts as CDR?” debate once and for all, we propose four questions that we believe are more important — and more useful — for decision-making: ➡️ Is the activity part of a system that will exist at scale in a net-zero world? ➡️ Can the system as a whole become net-negative?  ➡️ Can the full effects of an activity be accurately quantified, and are elements of the system that lie beyond the activity’s boundary effectively governed?  ➡️ Does this activity drive innovation and learning? Read our full commentary here: https://lnkd.in/dJDXfSYK

We maintain a tool that shows how companies use offsets to comply with California’s cap-and-trade program. The tool is now updated with the latest available data, providing a complete picture of offset use in the first decade of the program — from 2013 through 2023. https://lnkd.in/gEXpZSfk

Buffer pools are meant to help manage the risks of forest offsets. But these programs have not adequately accounted for the risk posed by wildfire and need to be redesigned. We analyzed publicly available data from 2024 fire losses to estimate how this most recent fire season will affect California’s forest offset buffer pool. The results demonstrate a need for more effective risk protection. https://lnkd.in/grv7Khg6

An offset project that was terminated after the catastrophic Bootleg Fire is trying to re-enroll in California's forest offset program as four new projects. This is a scenario where the owners of risky forest offsets could get paid out multiple times for the same plot of land — making it harder to prove additionality and damaging the long-term solvency of the program’s buffer pool. https://lnkd.in/gvE7S7Ss

We’re excited to see more carbon removal projects that optimize an existing process. From tweaking wastewater treatment to changing the rock types used in agricultural fields, these “optimization projects” can drive carbon removal without much new infrastructure. But optimization projects can also blur the lines between carbon removal and avoided emissions. If we want to support them with removal credits, we have to distinguish between the two. We wrote about why separating removals and avoided emissions is particularly hard with optimization projects. Today, many protocols used to credit these projects are too vague to reliably separate avoided emissions from removals. That needs to be fixed. However, taking a conservative approach to separating removals from avoided emission could end up disincentivizing optimization projects. That’s a problem because achieving decarbonization alongside carbon removal is a good thing for the climate! Our takeaway? It may be time to explore alternative financing mechanisms for projects like these. https://lnkd.in/gjytqnyi

Starting in January, companies that operate in California will have to start disclosing which specific offsets they use to back up their environmental claims – a new level of transparency for this subset of the market. But some companies have already started making AB1305 disclosures. We found and analyzed 25 early disclosures to get a better understanding of how AB1305 will work. While this early documentation demonstrates the power of transparency, it was hard to find, often incomplete, and tough to analyze. The situation could be improved through small policy interventions that would make AB1305 disclosures more findable and usable. https://lnkd.in/gf6Ecvw2

The IPCC is working on methodologies for countries to estimate and report on CDR. Freya Chay and Steve Smith have been participating and say that now is the time to publicly share your CDR research if you want it to inform this process. https://lnkd.in/gtwjEyQf

Today, Cascade put out their “Foundations” document about quantifying carbon removal from enhanced rock weathering (ERW). It’s the culmination of months of learning and discussion across multiple stakeholders, including us. The process surfaced useful insights, such as centering the importance of data transparency from ERW deployments. It also highlighted that ERW quantification is a hard problem. We still have a lot to learn, but this document is an exciting step and we hope it sparks more important work in this area. https://lnkd.in/e7qK4ECD