Additionality is one of the key principles for evaluating the climate impact of a carbon crediting project.

This type of carbon market is better known as an emission trading system. It allows companies or industrial installations to trade pollution permits called ‘allowances’, each of which typically represents a tonne of emissions.

The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) comes into effect from 2026. It is a regulatory tool that applies a levy at the EU border on the greenhouse gas content of imported cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity and hydrogen.

A budget is typically a plan for how and when to use certain resources and for what purpose. And a carbon budget is no exception. Based on a calculation of how much greenhouse gases humanity has left to emit to meet our collective climate targets, carbon budgets help identify the amount and speed with which we need to shrink our carbon footprint. It also helps determine how far off track we are from solving the climate crisis.

CCS is a process where CO2 from industrial sources is trapped and then compressed and stored typically permanently underground. However, sometimes it can be injected into oil wells for so-called enhanced oil recovery, leading to further pollution.

Carbon credits are the currency of carbon offset markets. A carbon credit unit is supposed to represent a tonne of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases reduced or removed.

Carbon leakage refers to a theoretical concept where an emissions reduction policy implemented in one jurisdiction is compensated or nullified by resulting emission increases if the polluting activity or industry moves to another jurisdiction with less stringent regulations.

Another type of carbon leakage relating to carbon markets is when, for example, a project which aims to stop deforestation succeeds in doing so in the area covered by the project but deforestation outside the area accelerates.

The concept of carbon neutrality represents the point at which the amount of carbon emissions emitted is equal to the amount of carbon removed from the atmosphere. It is similar to the concept of “net zero”.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) was a United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) scheme set up as a consequence of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that enabled richer, developed countries to purchase carbon credits representing presumed emissions reductions from developing countries. 

This is a type of carbon market that focuses on obligatory emissions targets. 

For example, countries or companies will purchase a certain number of carbon credits or emissions allowances in order for them to comply with a nationally or internationally mandated climate target.

In the realm of political decision making over climate change the “Conference of Parties” is the decision making forum that meets annually under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

This International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) policy’s full title is the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation. CORSIA ostensibly aims to address and offset the growth in carbon dioxide emissions of international aviation, while achieving what it describes as the industry’s “carbon-neutral growth”.