Rating the raters: Assessing the quality of carbon credit rating agencies
This briefing provides Carbon Market Watch’s analysis and recommendations related to the ‘Assessing and comparing carbon credit rating agencies’ report.
Blocked avenues for redress: Shedding light on carbon market grievance mechanisms
The standards bodies operating in the voluntary carbon market must ensure that climate projects take the rights and concerns of local and indigenous communities into account and offer them avenues for redress. A review conducted on behalf of Carbon Market Watch found that only one standard body, Gold Standard, provides appropriate recourse to file grievances …
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Combating corporate greenwashing through regulation
Regulators must act to protect people from false corporate green claims and to ensure that only true climate leaders are able to claim that mantle. If this is not appropriately addressed, people will continue to be misled by false climate claims and they will effectively be denied the opportunity to decarbonise their consumption and/or investment and play their part in limiting global warming to 1.5°C. Thus, it is imperative that policymakers, both at the EU and global levels, urgently act to remedy this pervasive problem of greenwashing.
This document sets out a series of recommendations to combat corporate greenwashing.
Secretive intermediaries: Are carbon markets really financing climate action?
The purchase of carbon credits through the voluntary carbon market is widely considered to be an effective way to channel finance towards climate action. However, despite years of existence and the recent hype surrounding voluntary carbon markets, no public research exists to assess how much VCM finance is actually reaching climate mitigation projects and local …
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Decarbonising cement: Options for reforming the EU’s Emissions Trading System
Cement production is one of the largest and most carbon-intensive sectors in the European Union. The industry emits 114 megatonnes of carbon dioxide each year. To ensure the EU achieves climate neutrality well before 2050, it is necessary to drastically reduce emissions
in the cement sector. The EU’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is the key instrument for incentivising emissions reduction in energy-intensive sectors, such as cement, but it has been underperforming compared with its potential. The ongoing revision of the system is a crucial opportunity to strengthen the EU ETS
Flights of Fancy: Preventing European airlines from making far-fetched climate claims
A study commissioned by Carbon Market Watch and conducted by the Öko-Institut analysed the action or investments that eight major European airlines were taking outside their value chains. These include activities that supposedly avoid or reduce greenhouse gas emissions and those that remove and store greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The eight selected airlines are …
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Expanding the EU’s carbon market for aviation: Study and Briefing
A study commissioned by Carbon Market Watch and Transport & Environment (T&E), and conducted by TAKS, analysed the emission reductions, costs and auctioning revenues generated by extending the scope of the Emission Trading System (ETS) for aviation. The three scenarios analysed are 1) the European Commission’s (EC) proposal as part of the Fit For 55 …
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Model answers: Studies reveal EU must revamp Emissions Trading System to live within its carbon budget
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest report underscores the urgency of the climate crisis: the effects of the climate breakdown are already being felt around the world, and will only become more destructive in the coming decades. Humanity is rapidly running out of time to keep planetary heating limited to the Paris Agreement’s …
Why the EU must strengthen its climate target, including in the Emissions Trading System
There are multiple arguments for why the EU’S 2030 climate target aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% is not compatible with the 1.5°C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. The EU thus will need to look at how it can do more. Substantial additional action in all economic sectors and in …
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How to advocate for effective EU carbon pricing
The Emissions Trading System (ETS) is one of the key EU climate policies and its reform is essential for the successful implementation of the EU Green Deal and the achievement of the Union’s 2030 climate targets. Advocating for a strong revision of the EU ETS is an inherent part of civil society’s work to help …
