Natural Climate Solutions: Monthly News & Reports Summary
News stories from January 2021
- Unpacking the New “Blueprint” for Bigger (and Better?) Voluntary Carbon Markets. After four months of exhaustive consultation among nearly 200 environmental and financial entities the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets (TSVCM) has released its “blueprint” for expanding voluntary carbon markets to support the global transition to net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050
- Global carbon market grows 20% to $272 billion in 2020: The increase in value marks the fourth consecutive year of record growth for the global carbon market, which has expanded more than five-fold since 2017
- The business case for CO2 removal in a net-zero world. The question is not whether trees, CCS & direct air capture are needed, but what will deliver carbon removal at scale
- What We Got Right on Deforestation in the Past Decade. It’s been a tumultuous decade for deforestation – one that culminated with a global pandemic and fires around the world. But there have been successes that we can replicate and build on to reach zero net deforestation by 2030
- One Planet Summit: no climate fix without biodiversity. A UN-backed summit of political leaders and CEOs pledging to reverse the accelerating destruction of the natural world was long on promises and short on cash
- The climate outsider tackling Britain’s global warming mission. As president of COP26, Alok Sharma will oversee U.N. climate talks like no other
- What Does 2021 Hold for Tropical Forests? 2020 was a rough year for tropical rainforest conservation efforts, but what’s in store for 2021.Here are 11 things to watch.
Recent consultations
The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has published the first draft of their SBTi Net Zero Standard criteria, which is available for public consultation until 26 February. See the webinar recording for more details.
The Secretariat of the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) has announced the launch of a public stakeholder consultation on version 2.0 of The REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard (TREES). The consultation will be open until 2 April.
The European Commission has launched a public consultation on the development of a new EU Forest Strategy. The strategy, to be adopted later this year, will build on the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2030, cover the whole forest cycle, and promote the many services that forests provide. The consultation is open until 19 April.
Policy & Market Developments
World Bank FCPF Agreements: The World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), after extending the deadline to reach ERPAs with various countries, has signed agreements with 10 countries for a total value of USD 500 million. Most recently, agreements were signed with Fiji and Laos.
ACR Standard Update: Version 7.0 of ACR’s standard was published in January. The updated ACR standard details ACR’s requirements and specifications for the quantification, monitoring, reporting, verification, registration and issuance of project-based GHG emissions reductions and removals as carbon credits. Version 7 of the standard includes the use of 100-year GWPs from the IPCC 5th Assessment Report and rules to avoid double counting in CORSIA.
Recent Reports
Other reports:
Investing in Natural Climate Solutions: The importance of reducing deforestation. IETA, December 2020
Upcoming events
ART TREES: As part of the consultation process, the ART Secretariat is hosting a series of webinars to provide an overview of proposed updates in TREES 2.0 and gather questions and comments from stakeholders:
- Monday 1 March 2021, 10am EST / 4pm CET (English)
- Tuesday 2 March 2021, 10am EST / 4pm CET (Spanish)
- Thursday 4 March 2021, 12pm EST / 6pm CET (Portuguese)
If your company has recently published a report or news story and you would like to have this published in an upcoming edition of this newsletter, please send an email to henry@ieta.org or cordova@ieta.org