3 ways to restore confidence in carbon markets in 2024
- Media Manager
- Dec 14, 2023
- 1 min read
GreenBiz
Written By: Margaret Morales
Published: December 14th, 2023
Heading into 2024, signals are emerging that carbon markets can still be effective ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
A string of investigations in 2023 exposed inflated impact claims by carbon credit developers and gaps in project design, eroding trust in voluntary carbon markets. At the same time, some of the most trusted initiatives to restore integrity and credibility to the sector failed to deliver clear guidance for how companies can best employ carbon credits alongside supply chain decarbonization.
As a result, project developers downsized their ambitions and the market slowed down.
This leaves carbon buyers with a decision to make: Dive in, fix what’s broken, root out the shady providers and leverage the power of carbon markets to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions; or walk away from the complexities and uncertainties that plagued the sector throughout 2023.
Going into 2024, signals are emerging that carbon markets can still become effective mechanisms for coordinating global climate action. Governments, carbon registries and standards bodies have promised greater collaboration. Recent studies have signaled that companies using carbon credits are decarbonizing their own supply chains faster than those that don’t, turning a popular narrative of carbon markets as "permission to pollute" on its head.
