Aligning with Paris: Voluntary Markets in Transition

In the cover feature of the recently published Carbon Mechanisms Review (CMR) "Aligning with Paris," the authors take up the debate on the challenges of the voluntary carbon market, which has to find new approaches to ensure that voluntary action supports real additional activities that go beyond existing host countries' climate plans as laid down in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

The latest issue of the CMR presents the position of the German Environment Ministry regarding the voluntary market and features an interview with the Gold Standard quality label on their answers and their approach to the new challenges. The authors also put the debate into context and ask what steps need to be taken at the level of United Nations Framework Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) this year to make credible voluntary offsetting and market-based climate action under Article 6 possible in the first NDC period. Furthermore, this issue reports on the recent NDC updates and analyses countries' attitudes towards the use of market mechanisms for their NDC achievement. Finally, options are presented for regulating the transition of both Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) activities and carbon credits stemming from CDM projects (CER) into the Paris Agreement world. 

The Carbon Mechanisms Review 1/2021 is available free of charge under the link below.