CarbonPlan

We’re excited to see more carbon removal projects that optimize an existing process. From tweaking wastewater treatment to changing the rock types used in agricultural fields, these “optimization projects” can drive carbon removal without much new infrastructure. But optimization projects can also blur the lines between carbon removal and avoided emissions. If we want to support them with removal credits, we have to distinguish between the two. We wrote about why separating removals and avoided emissions is particularly hard with optimization projects. Today, many protocols used to credit these projects are too vague to reliably separate avoided emissions from removals. That needs to be fixed. However, taking a conservative approach to separating removals from avoided emission could end up disincentivizing optimization projects. That’s a problem because achieving decarbonization alongside carbon removal is a good thing for the climate! Our takeaway? It may be time to explore alternative financing mechanisms for projects like these. https://lnkd.in/gjytqnyi

Starting in January, companies that operate in California will have to start disclosing which specific offsets they use to back up their environmental claims – a new level of transparency for this subset of the market. But some companies have already started making AB1305 disclosures. We found and analyzed 25 early disclosures to get a better understanding of how AB1305 will work. While this early documentation demonstrates the power of transparency, it was hard to find, often incomplete, and tough to analyze. The situation could be improved through small policy interventions that would make AB1305 disclosures more findable and usable. https://lnkd.in/gf6Ecvw2

The IPCC is working on methodologies for countries to estimate and report on CDR. Freya Chay and Steve Smith have been participating and say that now is the time to publicly share your CDR research if you want it to inform this process. https://lnkd.in/gtwjEyQf

Today, Cascade put out their “Foundations” document about quantifying carbon removal from enhanced rock weathering (ERW). It’s the culmination of months of learning and discussion across multiple stakeholders, including us. The process surfaced useful insights, such as centering the importance of data transparency from ERW deployments. It also highlighted that ERW quantification is a hard problem. We still have a lot to learn, but this document is an exciting step and we hope it sparks more important work in this area. https://lnkd.in/e7qK4ECD

The ocean is a massive natural carbon sink and ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) could help it store even more carbon. But to get the most out of that OAE, we need to understand the best places and seasons to deploy our efforts. That’s why CarbonPlan has teamed up with [C]Worthy to make a new interactive mapping tool. The map uses a dataset generated by [C]Worthy to show how added alkalinity moves through the ocean and where adding alkalinity can make the most difference on carbon uptake. https://lnkd.in/gpPvFXHh

We’re looking for an Open Source Lead who can help us design and build open software and data infrastructure to tackle hard climate problems. If you feel passionate about this work and ready to manage a small, flexible team, we hope you’ll apply! https://lnkd.in/e6nK2F38

There’s a growing industry of companies selling data on climate risk. But there’s very little public information on what they’re doing and how different estimates compare. We analyzed sample climate risk estimates from two private firms for 342 addresses, looking at fire risk in California and flood risk in New York. We found that, while the models broadly agree about regional patterns of risk and the impact of climate change, the localized results can vary significantly. Also striking is that we asked for sample data from nine companies, for a project explicitly in the public interest, and only two shared their data. We can’t say one company is right and the other is wrong. That’s not what this is about. But the fact that they can differ, in ways that matter, is a big deal. Private climate risk analysis could increasingly determine how insurance companies, cities, and individuals plan for the future. But there’s essentially no regulation or standardization of this industry, and companies have not been voluntarily transparent about where their numbers come from. It’s important for consumers to understand that one set of results does not represent a singular truth, and it’s also increasingly important that consumers have access to a fully open, public option. https://lnkd.in/ejQMZUEY

Carbon Offsets Fire Update The Park Fire, burning outside of Chico, has burned over 360,000 acres and is now the sixth largest fire in California’s history. It has also burned through at least four forest offset projects that are enrolled in California’s compliance offset program. One project, CAR1382, has been almost entirely enveloped by the fire — we calculate that 97 percent of the project’s listed area has burned. All four projects are owned by Sierra Pacific Industries and, collectively, have received millions of credits. Data availability issues and the rapid developing situation make it hard to say more at this time.

More Carbon Offsets On Fire The second largest project in California’s forest offset program — the Colville IFM project (ACR255) in eastern Washington state — is burning. Two fires, named Swawilla I and Bridge Creek, have burned almost 9,000 acres of the project and triggered several evacuations on the Colville Reservation. After being issued nearly 15 million offset credits, the project has repeatedly lost carbon over the past several years due to wildfire and extreme weather events. According to paperwork filed with California’s offset regulator, those losses exceeded 5.5 million credits between 2020 and 2022. These new fires look likely to further diminish the project’s carbon stocks and the program’s buffer pool. You can see real-time fire data and how it overlaps in ACR255 in our offsets fire tracker: https://lnkd.in/gRr9wwFs

Our research found that some low-quality projects received ICVCM offset credit quality labels. The organization has said it is looking into this problem. For now, we suggest market participants adjust their expectations about what the process can deliver. https://lnkd.in/gz2Fain2