Ecosystem Marketplace
Author: John Vidaurrazaga and Molly Peters-Stanley
Tackling tropical deforestation can put a huge dent in global carbon emissions, but also requires a big pool of money to make forests more valuable alive than dead. Forest projects seeking carbon credits received a boon this week as a major standard provider announced its first benchmark to quantify the climate benefits of tropical forest conservation. Southeast Asia’s carbon-rich peat forests are first on the list.
The first Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) methodology to quantify the climate benefits for projects reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) is now approved and available for us after going live this Monday.
“The carbon market can now have a role in REDD, and that’s a sea change from where we were last week,” says David Antonioli, CEO of the Voluntary Carbon Standard Association. “It is great news for the sheer benefit of helping to channel finance to real projects that have real impacts on the ground.”