How rethinking carbon markets can forge a path to the green transition
We must stop treating the removal or avoidance of a ton of carbon as the market’s main goal. Instead, the market should channel money to sustainable, future-focused businesses and support governments tackling climate change.
The founding CEO of Verra explores how carbon markets — already a crucial tool in our climate toolbox — can catalyze the global shift to a green economy.
It’s quite a thing to find yourself, unexpectedly, in the eye of the storm. One day, I was a CEO in a niche industry — the next, I found myself at the center of a heated public debate.
My sector, the voluntary carbon market (VCM), and my former organization work with carbon credits, setting standards for their generation. Over 25 years working with carbon credits, I witnessed the evolution of perceptions about this once small but innovative climate solution grow increasingly polarized — with market stakeholders making the case that carbon finance channels critical funding to important mitigation efforts and detractors arguing that carbon markets are a distraction from real action.
So, are carbon credits good or bad?
The carbon credit debate is often oversimplified, reduced to a "yes or no" and "good or bad" dichotomy. We need a more nuanced discussion to decide the future of carbon credits.
The crucial question is: Can carbon markets facilitate the green transition in the l( article continues at GreenBiz )