Two peer-reviewed articles from 4C in the past few weeks have spun up discussions around the future of financing deforestation avoidance and afforestation projects.
- A commentary in Nature Sustainability on "Nature-based Credits at a Crossroads" discusses the principles that should form the basis of scientifically credit nature based carbon credits. We argue in it that continuing to produce nature-based credits using dubious accounting methodologies will yield limited carbon and biodiversity gains. But establishing scientific credibility unlocks the potential of credits to meaningfully contribute to targets of both the Paris and Kunming-Montreal agreements. (LinkedIn discussion)
- A paper in Carbon Management on "Mitigating risk of credit reversal in nature-based climate solutions by optimally anticipating carbon release" is also now available in open access. In this paper, we show how project developers can enhance credibility and estimate impermanence by conservatively anticipating drawdowns to be eventually released by following a release schedule, issuing additional credits when actual release is less severe than anticipated. The paper shows how we can use ex-post observations of drawdowns to construct optimal release schedules that limit the risk of failing to generate credits (reversal), and how this approach balances the trade-off between generating credits evaluated as more permanent and limiting non-delivery risk. We also discuss how this approach incentivises project performance and provides a pragmatic solution to challenges facing larger-scale implementation of nature-based climate solutions. (LinkedIn discussion)
Find these papers, and more, on the 4C Publications page.