Research on Voluntary Offsetting in High Demand

The journal Climate Policy has published the top ten most downloaded articles from 2021. The journal publishes contributions from research and analysis on all aspects of climate policy. The article "Caught in between: credibility and feasibility of the voluntary carbon market post-2020" by Nicolas Kreibich and Dr. Lukas Hermwille, both Senior Researchers in the Research Unit Global Climate Governance at the Wuppertal Institute, was downloaded over 3,500 times. In the ranking, the contribution took sixth place.

In the article, the researchers look at the future of the voluntary carbon market. This market enables companies and individuals to offset unavoided emissions by purchasing climate change mitigation certificates. This is particularly important for companies that aim at becoming climate neutral and cannot fully avoid all their emissions. The peer-reviewed article contrasts new figures on the potential demand for certificates with the ongoing attempt on the supply side to adapt to the changed circumstances of the Paris Climate Agreement.
The authors conclude that there is currently still a clear discrepancy between the expectations of companies that aim at using voluntary offsetting as part of their climate protection strategy and the uncertainty on the demand side in making such certificates available.

The article is available for download free of charge at the link below. The top ten ranking of Climate Policy can be accessed using the following link.