Apr 14 2008
The California Climate Action Registry announces the launch of the national Climate Action Reserve, a new division of the respected non-profit Registry designed to assure a high degree of environmental integrity, transparency, accuracy, and accountability in the voluntary carbon market.
The Climate Action Reserve works on several levels to bring order and credibility to carbon reduction projects and their associated inventories of greenhouse gas emissions reduction tons.
To begin with, the Registry develops standardized greenhouse gas emissions reduction project protocols, which are guidelines for the development of national reduction projects. These protocols are based on internationally recognized best practices which assure projects are real, permanent, verifiable, and additional. The protocols are developed with stakeholder workgroups representing the business, government, science and environmental sectors; fine tuned through a formal public review and comment process; and published on the California Climate Action Registry website for the public to view and utilize.
"The Registry's Forest Protocols are among the world's most accurate and environmentally sound, which led the State of California to adopt them," said Mary Nichols, Chair of the California Air Resources Board, the state agency charged with implementing AB32, California's landmark Global Warming Solutions Act.
Crucial information about carbon reduction projects, and their associated inventories of emissions reduction tons, is made publicly available on the Climate Action Reserve website. This includes project location, ownership; the name of the project developer; the third party verification firm and the verification report; the specific protocol utilized to develop a project; and additional detailed information.
Greenhouse gas emissions reductions are measured in Carbon Reduction Tons (CRTs, pronounced carrots). Every CRT registered with the Climate Action Reserve has been verified by an independent third party and assigned a unique serial number that is used to track its sales and confirm when it has been retired. This system prevents the possibility of double selling and allows buyers to confirm that tons purchased have in fact been used as an offset. The serial numbers can be used to research detailed project information publicly available on the Reserve website.
"The Climate Action Reserve raises the bar in the voluntary carbon market from an environmental point of view," said Frances Beinecke, President, Natural Resources Defense Council. "We support the work of the Climate Action Reserve and agree with its goals of bringing transparency, accuracy, and consistency nationwide.
"We recognize there is a need in the voluntary carbon market for additional consistency and credibility and created the Climate Action Reserve in response to that need," said Linda Adams, Secretary, California Environmental Protection Agency and Chair of the California Climate Action Registry.
"We are enthusiastic about the work the Reserve is doing because it provides increased certainty about investing in this sector," said Ken Newcombe, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Carbon Desk, Goldman Sachs.