American Forest Foundation reposted this
Today Rita Hite, the CEO of the American Forest Foundation, joined leaders from several other organizations - including The Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund, Conservation International, Wildlife Conservation Society, and Fauna & Flora - in writing an open letter to the Science Based Targets initiative expressing their collective support for the limited use of high-quality carbon credits in scope 3 abatement. This letter attempts to find common ground between the various perspectives that have been offered on this topic. I would encourage everyone on all sides of this issue to read this letter, look at the principles enunciated, and see if they represent an effective way both to continue to insist on corporate decarbonization while also mobilizing the climate finance we need IMMEDIATELY to maintain any hope of a 1.5 degree scenario. In brief, those principles include: - Limitation on the type of credits that can be used, so that such credits represent real climate impacts and respect other safeguards - Allowing companies to use credits only for emissions that are clearly unabatable at the moment, and only after following the mitigation hierarchy - Use of credits to address scope 3 emissions must reduce over time - Companies should be more strongly encouraged to use credits for Beyond Value Chain Mitigation (BVCM) as well - Alignment with the Voluntary Markets Integrity Initiative The Climate crisis requires us to think beyond traditional frameworks and find ways to collaborate in solving multiple problems all at the same time, using various and flexible approaches. This letter lays out the pathway for doing just that and I encourage SBTi and its various stakeholders to review, contribute to, refine and ultimately adopt this approach! You can see the letter here: https://lnkd.in/dhYAJyMq
Mark Smith
1mo
Great to see these important players come out and back the use of high quality carbon credits for scope 3 emissions. Having seen how hard it is to deliver on carbon neutral pledges from the inside you quickly realize that additional options are needed if these goals are ever to be reached. The key is QUALITY. I believe Biochar CDRs are at the top of the list and I am putting my money where my mouth is.
Executive Vice President of Climate Funding at The American Forest Foundation
1moJust want toa acknowledge I forgot to post the link to the letter in the original post; edited since to include. It's been one of those days. 😁