Biden administration issues guidelines on carbon credit integrity

The Biden administration on Tuesday released new guidelines to ensure the integrity of carbon credits or offsets.

While the act of purchasing carbon offsets or credits is voluntary, the administration says it wants to help ensure that the credits being sold are actually credible.

Individuals, businesses and other organisations can buy these credits to “offset” their emissions as part of their efforts to reach net zero, which could involve funding organisations to plant trees or prevent them from being cut down.

But the market for carbon credits has run into problems such as double counting, and some markets that protect trees have raised questions about whether they would have been cut down otherwise and for how long they would be protected.

Guidelines issued by the Biden administration state that these credits must represent actual additional reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. They must be permanent emissions reductions and must be verified by an accredited, independent third party.

The administration also said corporate buyers should make efforts to reduce their own direct emissions and disclose the nature of their emissions credits.

“These principles will help counter flashy greenwashing and other real risks in emerging voluntary markets, and instead leverage large amounts of capital as a catalyst to rigorously reduce emissions and create good-paying jobs,” national climate adviser Ali Zaidi said in a written statement.

The principles put forward by the Biden administration on Tuesday are broadly in line with those put forward by nonprofit groups such as the Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets (IC-VCM).

Nat Keohane, president of the Climate Energy Solutions Center, said White House support would help those efforts.

“I think that having the White House put forth principles that are really consistent with what IC-VCM has in place sends a really strong signal to the market that there is really weight and integrity to what the Integrity Council is doing,” said Keohane, who is affiliated with IC-VCM.