3 Things We Heard at New York Climate Week

EcoSystem Marketplace

Written By: Verena Manolis

Published: September 29th, 2023

Last week, members of our team gathered in New York City for New York Climate Week 2023. Actors across the climate action space, from companies and NGOs to indigenous organizations and governments, gathered at the Nature Positive Hub, hosted by Nature4Climate.

1. Partnerships need to focus on shared responsibility, rather than “support” and must be built on trust before finance reaches the ground.

What rang loud and clear from indigenous and local panelists throughout Nature Positive Hub events is that it is time for market actors to step up. At COP26 Glasgow in 2021, $1.7 billion was pledged to indigenous and local communities, yet a year later only 7% of these funds actually reached communities. This New York Climate week marks almost three years since these pledges, and communities are still searching for promised finance on the ground.

These communities are under immense pressure and cannot wait for investors and academics in the Global North to agree on the perfect way forward to keep providing the vital service of forest protection (i.e., the perfect is becoming the enemy of the good). Many agreed during a session hosted by Wildlife Conservation Society that at the end of the day, all actors need to “pony up” and start transacting carbon credits. Josh Tosteson, President of Everland, framed the market as a mechanism both “in service and in responsibility to” indigenous forest stewards.

2. Carbon market actors need to counter negative press and greenhushing by sharing their project success stories and amplifying the data that show carbon credits are essential to climate action and ambition.

Market actors throughout Climate Week reported feeling unmoored by a string of recent news stories calling into question voluntary carbon markets effectiveness and the motives of those who engage in the market. Yet as emphasized by Beto Borges, Director of our Communities and Territorial Governance Initiative earlier this year, condemning all carbon markets due to confused data analysis or a few bad actors puts a critical source of funding for climate action at risk, especially for indigenous and local communities who need direct finance to continue protecting and managing their forests.

Moreover, one leading project developer told us that in the absence of a “safe space” to invest in carbon offset projects, investors, like companies, will either keep quiet about their emissions reductions strategies (“greenhushing”) or stop participating in carbon markets altogether. This is a blow to market transparency, climate ambition, and achieving global emissions reductions goals. Like investments in any other economic market, there will always be inherent risk in investing in carbon credit projects, and it remains important that companies feel encouraged to take this risk without being attacked by media, even if the outcome is not perfect the first time around.

3. Not going “beyond carbon” is a missed opportunity.

Another message repeated throughout Climate Week, especially from indigenous and local community representatives, is that market actors need to do a better job capturing the whole picture when we think about valuing carbon credits and the activities associated with generating them. Gustavo Sánchez, President of Red MOCAF in Mexico defined looking beyond carbon as valuing people, traditional knowledge, community wellbeing, and biodiversity. Communities are much more than just “beneficiaries” of a carbon project, they’re essential partners. Yet, traditional knowledge is generally not acknowledged or paid for like western concepts of intellectual property rights.

Broadening carbon project focus to include specific community concerns is not just about equity; it helps address the root causes of deforestation and land degradation, such as lack of livelihood opportunities in forest communities and not having the resources to resist illegal incursions on protected land.

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