Climate 411

Want to understand Natural Climate Solutions Crediting? We have a handbook for that.

By Christine Gerbode / Published: February 1, 2024
Cover image of the Natural Climate Solutions Crediting Handbook

The Natural Climate Solutions Crediting Handbook

This blog was authored by Christine Gerbode, EDF’s Manager of Jurisdictional Alliances and Britta Johnston, Senior Policy Analyst for Natural Climate Solutions at EDF.

Natural climate solutions are essential to achieving our global climate goals. A range of studies suggest that a major global scale-up of NCS activities (that is, ways of protecting, restoring, and better managing ecosystems and working lands) can contribute as much as a third of the climate mitigation needed to keep us on track with global climate goals by 2030. That’s in addition to the many other benefits that NCS can bring to people and the planet.

Well-designed NCS crediting systems can help channel urgently needed finance to the people, communities, and countries that steward natural ecosystems and working landscapes.

But NCS crediting remains controversial, in part because it can be a challenge to understand: new crediting methods, business models, and policy frameworks are evolving quickly at local and international levels, and competing messages come from passionate voices working on all sides. If uncertainty, misunderstandings, and confusion lead to unwarranted mistrust of NCS crediting, well-intentioned actors might be pushed to unnecessarily abandon one of the most powerful potential tools in the climate fight.

Stakeholders across the climate space need urgent help to cut through the noise on NCS crediting. The NCS Crediting Handbook aims to meet this need by clearly laying out how high-quality NCS crediting can work—for credit sellers, for credit buyers, and as part of an effective and ethical global climate response.

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Also posted in Carbon Markets, News, REDD+ / Comments are closed

Now is the time for companies to help conserve nature. By investing in jurisdictional REDD+, they can do just that

By Breanna Lujan / Published: January 16, 2024
Tropical rainforest. Leslie Von Pless / EDF

Tropical rainforest. Leslie Von Pless / EDF

By Breanna Lujan, Senior Manager, Natural Climate Solutions 

The clock is ticking to halt and reverse deforestation so that we avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The good news is that companies can provide the finance needed to keep the world’s forests standing by purchasing high-quality emissions reductions credits from large-scale tropical forest conservation programs, otherwise known as jurisdictional REDD+ (JREDD+).  

In a jurisdictional scale approach to REDD+, a country, state, province or Indigenous territory has the authority to issue credits for forest carbon emissions reductions and removals. Due to the large scale at which they operate, JREDD+ programs have distinct and intrinsic features that enable them to meet key tenets of environmental and social integrity. JREDD+ programs can:  

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Also posted in Carbon Markets, Indigenous People, News, REDD+ / Comments are closed

Nature is more important than ever to realizing climate goals at COP28

By Breanna Lujan / Published: November 29, 2023
Aerial view: Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica

Natural climate solutions include conserving tropical forest and ocean ecosystems. Photo: Eisenlohr, iStock

This blog was co-authored by Britta Johnston, Senior Policy Analyst for Natural Climate Solutions at EDF.

Heading into COP28, nature as a climate solution has been making headlines, and rightfully so. Sustainably conserving, restoring, and managing the world’s ecosystems is one of the most powerful tools we have to meet global climate goals.

A recent study finds that restoring global forests where they occur naturally could potentially capture 226 gigatons of carbon, and 61 percent of the carbon storage could come from protecting existing forests.

We are beginning to realize the promise of protecting forests. Another report finds that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has dropped by 22.3 percent as a result of active intervention to curb forest loss – the lowest it has been since 2018.

Moreover, advancements in policies and practices to build resilience in boreal and temperate forest ecosystems, along with strategies for mitigating catastrophic wildfire, can ensure these ecosystems remain net greenhouse gas sinks.

Oceans also have climate mitigation potential. New evidence suggests that organisms in the mesopelagic zone, a region of ocean between 200 and 1,000 meters deep containing 95 percent of ocean biomass, may trap millions of tons of carbon each year by feeding in surface waters at night and diving back down in the day.

We have better science than ever before about nature’s role as a climate solution, and signs of progress on very important fronts. That’s why nature must be at the heart of conversation and action at COP28, both inside and outside the negotiation rooms.

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Also posted in Carbon Markets, Indigenous People, International, Paris Agreement, REDD+, United Nations / Read 1 Response

Article 6 moves to implementation, at COP28 and beyond

By Pedro Martins Barata / Published: November 20, 2023

This blog was authored by Pedro Martins Barata, AVP for Carbon Markets and Private Sector Decarbonization at the Environmental Defense Fund.

Since the Glasgow COP two years ago, there have been growing expectations to transform the market-based cooperation approaches outlined in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement into practical, effective actions for reducing global emissions. Article 6 is not just another clause in an international treaty; it serves as a practical framework for cooperative climate action that has the potential to unlock higher ambition for reducing carbon emissions and adaptation actions. As COP28 unfolds, it is set to complete the development stage of these mechanisms, paving the way for tangible, impactful action in the near future. 

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Also posted in Carbon Markets / Comments are closed

To make nature financing more equitable, we must understand how NCS credits are used

By Guest Author / Published: August 15, 2023

This blog was authored by Julia Ilhardt, former High Meadows Fellow, Global Climate Cooperation. 

sunset over a forest

At the end of last year, 196 nations agreed to the historic Global Biodiversity Framework, which includes the goal to protect 30% of land and sea area by 2030. Still, nature is woefully underfinanced, with investments in nature-based solutions needing to double to USD 384 billion per year by 2025, according to UNEP. 

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Also posted in Carbon Markets, Economics, News, REDD+ / Comments are closed

Bonn climate talks: The Global Stocktake, oceans, food and nature are issues to watch

By Guest Author / Published: June 1, 2023

EDF’s delegation to the climate talks taking place in Bonn, Germany from June 5 to June 15 give us some insights into the issues they’re following. 

Flags on clear sky. Getty.

Next week, climate negotiators will convene in Bonn, Germany for a two-week negotiation session that will serve as an important marker on the road to the COP28 climate talks in Dubai this November. The outcome of the talks, known as SB58, will set the stage for the negotiations at COP28, giving us an indication of what needs to happen in the months leading up to those pivotal talks.

Every year the climate negotiations become more urgent as we draw closer to the timelines for meeting the Paris Agreement goals. The task is even more challenging when considering the other crises the world faces, like economic disruption, energy insecurity and food scarcity. We need effective solutions that can solve for these multiple challenges simultaneously. The talks in Bonn are an important opportunity to gauge progress and push forward key action points that address these various challenges, in the lead up to COP28, and beyond.

EDF’s delegation to the Bonn climate talks are closely monitoring various important issues inside and around the negotiations. These include the Global Stocktake process, food, fisheries and ocean issues, and efforts to expand high-integrity carbon market cooperation.

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Also posted in Agriculture, Carbon Markets, International, News, Oceans, Paris Agreement, United Nations / Comments are closed