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Lindsey Hall: Hi. I'm Lindsey Hall, Head of Thought Leadership at S&P Global Sustainable1.

Esther Whieldon: And I'm Esther Whieldon, a Senior Writer on the Sustainable1 Thought Leadership team.

Lindsey Hall: Welcome to ESG Insider, an S&P Global podcast, where Esther and I take you inside the environmental, social and governance issues that are shaping the rapidly evolving sustainability landscape.

Esther Whieldon: On this podcast, we often hear how achieving the low carbon transition on a global scale will require all the tools at our disposal. And carbon markets are one key tool available to both companies and governments.

Lindsey Hall: In last week's episode of this podcast, we brought you an explainer on how carbon markets work, how compliance carbon markets allow companies and governments to find a cost-effective path to decarbonization, and how carbon markets have expanded in recent years to the point that about 1/4 of the world's emissions are now covered by some form of carbon price.

Esther Whieldon: We also heard that voluntary carbon markets have faced some recent challenges and criticisms that have eroded confidence and dampened trading in those markets. Today's episode is the second in a two-part miniseries on carbon markets. We'll dig into what is driving the challenges for the voluntary carbon market and how it is evolving to address those concerns.

We'll also explore some of the different types of voluntary carbon credits that are currently available in the market, and we'll hear how these markets can play a role in international decarbonization efforts. Now for a quick refresher on some terminology.

Voluntary carbon markets are used by companies to reach their climate targets or an expectation of being subject to related regulations in the future. And compliance markets are those that are regulated by governments with the goal of ratcheting down emissions on a local, regional, or national scale.

For the carbon credit project developer perspective, we'll talk with Frédéric Gagnon-Lebrun, Global Director of Climate Policy Finance and Carbon Markets at South Pole. South Pole is a climate project developer and solutions provider. Since being founded in 2006, it has developed and helped provide climate finance to over 850 projects in more than 50 countries.

And to understand how voluntary carbon markets are evolving and some of the risks and opportunities they present we'll hear it from Dr. Spencer Meyer, Chief Ratings Officer at BeZero Carbon. Spencer starts off by describing what BeZero Carbon does add his role there.

Dr. Spencer Meyer: We are the ratings agency for the carbon market globally. And we work with customers and clients all throughout the carbon market and help them mitigate risk as they are operating to help drive forward climate action in all kinds of ways. My own personal background is in the nature-based solution space. I'm a forester and ecologist by background, and I bring that lens to our work here, working with clients all around the world.

Esther Whieldon: So there's a lot to cover on this topic. Let's start with a high-level question, which is what is a carbon credit? And how are these credits generated and used?

Dr. Spencer Meyer: Sure. Good question. The world of carbon credits and the carbon market gets complicated quickly, but it's important to start with the basics. And a carbon credit is an instrument that can be purchased that is intended to represent 1-ton of carbon dioxide either removed from the atmosphere or avoided from going into the atmosphere.

And this instrument can be purchased, sold, traded, and most importantly, retired. And what retired means is when someone that holds this credit, typically, it might be a corporate entity that has a climate commitment of their own. When they retire it, it means they're putting it to bed. They're putting it away and saying, "That credit will never be used again. That single ton that it represents is forever extinguished, avoided, or removed from the atmosphere." That is the intent of what one carbon credit is meant to be.

Esther Whieldon: Okay. So for somebody just starting to learn about this space, what kind of credits exist? What kind are being treated today?

Dr. Spencer Meyer: Sure. Carbon credits, I should say upfront, are really only part of the overall solution. As a society and as economies around the world, we really need to decarbonize, that's to say we need to reduce our direct emissions through the products and services that we produce and use in our daily lives, in our business lives, and throughout the society.

But there are some industries and some sectors where you simply can't reduce your emissions to zero. Food, for example, and a lot of natural resources, and the aviation industry. And there's only so far you can go. And the so-called hard-to-abate sectors, in particular, are places where carbon credits will be necessary.

For the holder of these offsets or these carbon credits, to pay for some good to happen, some climate benefit to happen somewhere else because they can't themselves reduce down to zero. And so these projects are typically invested in some other location or even sometimes in another sector. And the credit that is generated from that offset will go to the ultimate holder and whoever retires that carbon credit. And it's very important, these are not double counted. So they have to keep very close track of who owns and has the right to retire that credit.

Esther Whieldon: So can you give us a sense of the different categories that kind of are out there for different sectors and/or, yes, just in general?

Dr. Spencer Meyer: Sure. Yes. There are very diverse ways to generate carbon credits. Say, from highly technological solutions to old-fashioned carbon sequestration through trees. Trees are the oldest sequester of carbon out there, and we know a lot about how trees work. But nature can be fickle, and it's very complicated to understand and quantify how to generate carbon credits. And that's a lot about the work that we do with our clients, both on the nature-based side and on the technological side.

So for example, within the nature-based realm, you have forestry credits. So you can have a managed forest that is actively producing timber for everyday people to use, whether it's through building houses or through other timber products. And you can change the way you manage that forest to leave more wood on the stump essentially.

And the way you might improve that forest or change how you manage that forest over time could reduce the amount of carbon that is being emitted in the atmosphere through harvest, but it can also change the future state of that forest, so the forest itself is equipped to sequester even more carbon than it would have otherwise.

So those are called improved forest management type of carbon credits and a very popular one in the carbon markets. You'll often hear the term REDD or reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (sic) [reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation]. This is a category of credits where the business as usual activity to be expected is that the forest might be cleared for agriculture, for example, in many places.

And if you can avoid that forest being cleared through financial mechanism and agreements of local communities, you can avoid the emission of the tons of carbon that would have gone into the atmosphere in the business as usual or the so-called counterfactual case.

We also hear a lot about planting new trees, which is a very important thing that can be done in some parts of the world in certain kinds of forests and ecosystems. And new trees that would not have been there otherwise, in fact, will sequester a lot of carbon from the atmosphere. Actually, in this case, we're moving carbon that had already been emitted to the atmosphere and store it into these new forests.

Esther Whieldon: And what are some of the technological based credits that are out there?

Dr. Spencer Meyer: Yes. The non nature-based space or the technological space is really quite broad set of categories. We have everything from renewable energy, where you're displacing fossil fuel-based energy sources with solar or wind, for example, to capturing methane gas and flaring it that would have come out of a landfill otherwise, to some new kind of interesting emerging technologies like direct air capture, where these large factories, in essence, large fan systems are used to pull carbon out of the atmosphere and often is then stored underground. And so there's quite a few new emerging technologies, some of which are proven and some of which are really quite at the forefront. But this technological area of carbon credits is very diverse and holds a lot of promise as well.

Esther Whieldon: What are some of the biggest risks that are out there right now for carbon credits? And why do those risks exist?

Dr. Spencer Meyer: Yes. Great question. The biggest risk of all, I would say, is that somebody paid for a climate benefit that never comes to pass. And if we are spending money and investing as a society in mitigating climate change and we think we're having that progress, and then it turns out they didn't really have the climate benefit, we'll be in a much bigger hurt in the future as the climate problem itself will get bigger rather than get smaller.

So the biggest risk is that we think we're doing good, and in reality, we're not having that impact we want. A lot of that really comes down to knowing how impactful, how effective were the programs that you're investing in if you're on the buy side of these carbon credits. And it's really important. There's a lot of different ways to look at that. If you're investing in projects that were likely to happen otherwise, that is not really changing the business as usual, and it's not going to have the intended effect for the climate that we so badly need to happen.

There are also a lot of ways you can get the math wrong. Measuring carbon and estimating carbon, whether it's in a renewable energy project or whether it's in a forest halfway across the globe, it's very important to get the math right. If you have a factor of two error somewhere in there or you're overestimating, you might be having half the climate impact you thought you were having. And so economics plays into this importantly as well. And so there's quite a few ways that our analysts at BeZero Carbon will look at the risks in several different categories.

Esther Whieldon: One term I hear come up sometimes around carbon credits is the question of permanence as well or permanency. Is that also a big risk in this area?

Dr. Spencer Meyer: It is, for sure, a big risk. The central issue here is that when we emit a ton of carbon, it essentially goes in the atmosphere and stays there for close to in perpetuity. It has a very long life in the atmosphere, continuing to have the negative impacts that is causing climate change here on earth. And so if we're going to offset those, the concept is that the actions that are happening on the ground to mitigate them should be similar in length or durability.

We think about permanence or non-permanence risk, and that is to say, if you do this action today, will it still be having the same climate benefit, 10 years, 50 years, 100 years, or maybe even 1,000 years into the future? And there aren't many institutions in our society that we can think of on the time scales quite that long.

And so there's a lot of challenge and a lot of controversy of saying how long is long enough? And is 50 years effective? Or is 100 years long enough, or does it need to be 1,000 years? And this has been one of the major sources of controversy in the voluntary carbon market to-date.

We at BeZero Carbon think this is an evolving topic. We think a lot about non-permanence risk and what kinds of safeguards could be put in place in projects to maximize the amount of time that project has an impact for. And when it doesn't have an impact beyond a certain date, what mechanism might make up for that? Does it need to be replaced? Does the buyer need to get a different credit? Should the project itself do something differently, et cetera?

Esther Whieldon: And is that risk higher for like nature-based projects versus others? Or how does it differ for them?

Dr. Spencer Meyer: Yes, that's a great question. Permanence and durability of carbon credits is really quite diverse across lots of different project types. Nature itself is very complex to measure, and understand, and also control. And trees, even absent interventions around climate or carbon offsets, trees themselves fall and die in the forest, but the forest itself usually remains for a long period of time. And so the scale at which you're operating and whether your mental model is an individual tree or whether your mental model is an entire forest will impact your perspective on forest. One common problem for non-permanence is fire risk.

And we know through a lot of science and carbon modeling that as climate change has more and more impacts, that the frequency of fire and the intensity of forest fires will increase in many forests around the world -- or not all forest, but certainly in many forest. And that in itself will have a feedback loop to increase non-permanence risk or the lifespan of those carbon credits in certain places.

So there's quite a lot of work happening in the market, both on the financial side and on the signing side as well to really understand non-permanence risk, what can be done about it from a contractual standpoint, from an insurance standpoint, and from improving the development of carbon projects perspective as well.

Esther Whieldon: So a lot of times when I hear conversations about carbon markets and carbon credits come up, the question of credibility and trust in the markets is brought up. How do we solve the challenge of credibility here? What's needed?

Dr. Spencer Meyer: Yes. There's a lot of work over the last few years. I think for those working in the climate space, it feels like -- it's an industry that's been around for quite a while. But we're really talking less than a couple of decades from a carbon markets perspective. If we look at more mature markets have been around a lot longer than, say, the finance markets. There's a lot of market infrastructure in place that has evolved over long periods of time. These markets don't start with having all the safeguards and infrastructure in place.

We at BeZero Carbon are developing the ratings industry to be part of that long-term infrastructure for the carbon market because we believe it's necessary as a risk mitigation strategy that will help address some of the questions around integrity and quality. And I'm not always a big fan of the term integrity because lack of integrity implies malintent. But virtually, everyone I meet working in the carbon space is well-intentioned and really trying to help address the climate.

And I think what we're seeing over the last quite a few years is people learning as we go. People are jumping in and trying to act to improve the climate situation and coming up with new solutions. And some of the solutions don't work out as well as we want them to. Some of the solutions fall short. And what we have is this constant feedback or a growth mindset of improvement in the carbon market. So what we've been seeing over the last year or two are quite a few new initiatives really to improve the quality and integrity in the market.

We have the Voluntary Carbon Markets Initiative (sic) [Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative]. We have the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market. We have ourselves and other ratings agencies that are bringing to bear risk mitigation strategies. And I think we're seeing an overall movement towards developing new higher-impact carbon projects.

There's a lot of detailed work that goes into this, and it takes time, particularly if you're trying to respond to your past criticisms, many of which have been very warranted about some earlier projects that failed or at least didn't deliver at the scale that they claim to deliver.

And some of the controversy in the market over the last couple of years has really been these unintended consequences of carbon, in some cases, becoming another extractive industry where the value of the asset itself typically was in the community previously and now some of that value could be taken out.

And so we get into concepts like benefit sharing. So if somebody is making money from selling carbon credits from a forest or an agricultural farmland, how much of that money is going back directly in the community and is going to benefit the community members who have been the stewards of that land? So that's called benefit sharing.

And so I think we have to look at -- when we're looking at carbon projects, we have to look at all these beyond carbon benefits, both the biodiversity suite of things as well as the social and economic benefits or potentially negative impacts that are happening in the communities where these projects are happening. But in general, I think the market is moving in a strong direction. But it will take some time to work out the kinks.

Esther Whieldon: Great. Well, I think we've covered just about everything I wanted to get to. Was there any topics you wanted to cover?

Dr. Spencer Meyer: Yes. I guess I wanted to talk a little bit about the future of the carbon market. We have covered some of the controversies in the carbon market. And I also said it's still early days. Even though the carbon market is a couple of decades old, it's still early days. And while there have been controversies in the last couple of years, I think overall BeZero Carbon, we've seen a lot of movement for the better or for the future of the carbon market, and we're really quite bullish on the long-term carbon market.

I also wanted to mention the recent report we put out called $100 billion for planet and people report. And what we're doing there is we're estimating what benefits the carbon market will have outside of the climate benefits itself once the market reaches $100 billion in growth.

BloombergNEF has estimated that carbon markets should reach $100 billion or surpass it by the mid-2030s. So that's really not that far off. And what we've done is we've looked at some of the benefits that we expect to occur once the market reaches that level. So for example, we talked about the co-benefits coming from forest carbon projects. Part of those co-benefits are actions on the ground that will support the country level sustainable development goals. These are goals that the United Nations has set for the globe.

We expect about $60 billion of revenue each year will come in through projects that are directly supporting those SDGs, that's about five times the UN's annual budget for the development program. So what we're looking at is a public-private market that will be directly supporting these other goals out there in addition to the climate benefits themselves.

In addition, this very large carbon market that is expected in the future, will be creating jobs that never really existed before. We've estimated there will be about 17 million direct new jobs in the carbon market. That's equivalent to approximately the numbers set by artificial intelligence by the year 2030. So we're talking about really sizable impacts the carbon market will have beyond simply the climate benefits, and yet we know the climate benefit itself is the core goal of the carbon market, the core goal that we're all trying to achieve as a society.

Esther Whieldon: Spencer mentioned SDGs. Those are the UN sustainable development goals. He also said he's hearing increased discussion about how the actions taken in voluntary markets may play a role in the international carbon market mechanism created under Article 6 of the Paris agreement. Article 6 involves international cooperation toward decarbonization goals through carbon markets. And if you want to know more about Article 6, we'll include a link to a previous episode we did on that topic in our show notes.

What you need to know for this episode is that while governments have reached a number of agreements on the rules for Article 6, additional negotiations are expected in the upcoming UN climate conference of the parties known as COP29. That gathering is slated to occur in November. Okay. Here's Spencer.

Dr. Spencer Meyer: Yes. A lot of the work happening under Article 6 is occurring in parallel to the voluntary carbon market. And there's a lot of interest from our clients in understanding Article 6 and where trading will be allowed or where it will not be allowed, which countries are going to cooperate with each other. I would say multinationals and a lot of the government clients that we work with are paying very close attention to that.

They're thinking about how their own national and jurisdictional programs will align or could align under Article 6, and in many cases, how that dovetails with the voluntary carbon market. It seems like a lot of folks in the market are hedging and trying to decide exactly where the most impact can occur, where their liabilities will lie, and how through carbon actions, whether it's direct investments in carbon projects themselves or whether it's sourcing carbon credits and other projects, how that will play out for their climate commitments.

Esther Whieldon: What Spencer said about how a lot of work happening under Article 6 is occurring in parallel to the voluntary carbon markets is something I also heard from our next guest. Frédéric of South Pole. Frédéric starts off by describing his role.

Frédéric Gagnon-Lebrun: I lead a team that works on policy and strategy within the business line that supports the development of carbon credits and, essentially, helps different types of organizations secure financing through carbon markets. I have about 20 years of experience in this space.

In fact, I started early on when the Kyoto Protocol was being negotiated and was not ratified yet, and got interested in the ways -- these different ways that we can leverage carbon markets way back then when the first emissions trading systems were being developed and when the global mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol were being developed as well.

Esther Whieldon: What is South Pole's role in the voluntary carbon market?

Frédéric Gagnon-Lebrun: So South Pole is a global provider of services on the climate issue and more broadly on sustainability. We work with more than 1,000 corporate clients and governments in supporting them in their decarbonization journey. And what we do more specifically in the business line that I work in is -- and that's the core business of South Pole, is to support companies and NGOs that want to secure revenue from the carbon market, to finance their emission reduction or removals projects, to secure those carbon credits, and secure that revenue by taking the credits to the market.

So over the last few years, we've been very active on the voluntary carbon market, which has been increasing in size quite rapidly. But I think it's interesting to go back in time when South Pole was created, the first markets that existed were actually not the voluntary carbon market.

So the demand was not coming from companies wanting to buy carbon credits and take responsibility for their emissions voluntarily, it actually came from regulations, government regulations, and also the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement in the early 2000, that had a mechanism for generating revenue from selling carbon credits.

So we've adapted with changes in the market, and we're now also adapting to the new phase of the market that will see the voluntary market continue evolving, but also in parallel, see the development of a compliance market, both at the international level under the Paris Agreement and at the national level in different countries, and that's really the heart of my work.

Esther Whieldon: You mentioned some of the different types of projects. Can you give me some examples of the project South Pole's worked on that have been used for carbon offsets or credits?

Frédéric Gagnon-Lebrun: Yes. South Pole works and supports different private companies and NGOs in different types of projects. So we work, for example, with communities that want to shift from traditional cooking devices to clean cooking devices, thereby reducing deforestation in nearby areas.

We work on reducing on REDD projects, for example, by working on different types of interventions to reduce the rate of deforestation. We work on afforestation or reforestation projects that actually builds up the stock of carbon in forest, and we've worked a lot as well on different types of renewable energy projects.

So there's a wide variety of projects that are eligible to generate government credits and thereby secure financing from selling these carbon credits on the voluntary market. One thing that's interesting to see on the compliance market is that because the source of demand is different, the drivers and the interest in different types of projects are also quite different.

So what we're seeing now emerging are projects that are perhaps less interesting for companies that want to tell a story around their purchase of carbon credits and types of projects that they support, but actually have significant environmental benefits for the climate.

And I'm thinking of projects, for example, in the cement sector or different types of energy efficiency projects in industrial applications, and also there is an interesting initiative to accelerate the retirement of coal-fired power plants as well that could be of interest, we're seeing interest from both voluntary buyers and compliance buyers for these types of projects.

Esther Whieldon: Earlier, Spencer mentioned that some of the verification problems that have played in the voluntary carbon markets in recent years. South Pole has also been the subject of some of that negative press related to whether one of its deforestation projects in Zimbabwe was providing the level of offsets claimed. South Pole terminated its contract with the owner and developer of that project in October 2023. I asked Frédéric what steps is South Pole taking to ensure that existing and future projects don't run into these same issues? Here's his reply.

Frédéric Gagnon-Lebrun: So this has been a concern for South Pole certainly, and the media scrutiny and the issues that have been raised has been -- we've taken it extremely seriously internally. And it has also been a challenge that we've tackled, I think, collectively as an ecosystem of actors, active on the voluntary market and wanting the voluntary market and the demand that comes from corporates to have the greatest impact possible to solve the climate.

So for South pole, our response has been to manage risks and enhance quality in our project development as seriously as possible. We've nominated a Chief Risk Officer to oversee that work and the future development of our projects. And the main shift that we are taking is actually to prepare for the next phase of the markets.

And we're seeing the development of regulated markets and regulations more generally of the voluntary carbon space as a key evolution. And along those lines, we've had a complete change of leadership within South Pole with a new CEO, a new CFO, and the appointment of the new Chair of the Board, who comes from a heavily regulated insurance industry. And therefore, we are preparing for much more regulations in global markets, carbon markets generally and preparing for the next phase of the market to leverage market-based mechanisms to the best possible.

Esther Whieldon: I asked Frédéric what role does he see carbon markets playing in helping to close the climate finance gap?

Frédéric Gagnon-Lebrun: Yes. So the biggest challenge that we have in filling the climate finance gap is mobilizing private capital. And the voluntary carbon market and regulated markets are all about holding companies responsible and accountable for their emissions and helping them finance emission reduction projects by their own private capital.

So the voluntary carbon market helps doing that and raised -- has raised $2 billion in carbon revenue in 2022. And we can expect the regulated markets as they are being developed under the Paris Agreement and through national government regulations even more than that.

And the regulated government markets today, for example, had cover 1/4 of our global carbon emissions and have raised in revenue $100 billion in 2023. So there clearly is a way for these carbon market mechanisms that come in different ships and forms to actually mobilize climate finance and contribute to filling the gap.

Esther Whieldon: Earlier in the episode, Frédéric mentioned that part of this work involves making sure that carbon credits projects that South Pole develops align with the requirements for international cooperation of carbon markets under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Here he is explaining in greater detail what that work involves.

By the way, you'll hear him mention CORSIA, that's a Carbon Offsetting And Reduction Scheme For International Aviation. He also mentions NDCs. Those are Nationally Determined Contributions. These are the documents that countries update about every 5 years that outlined their plans for lowering emissions in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Okay. Here's Frédéric.

Frédéric Gagnon-Lebrun: So our work now in developing carbon projects focuses very heavily in developing projects that would comply with the rules of the Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and could be used for countries to achieve their NDCs. And it is the same type of carbon credits that also are required by the CORSIA, which is an emission reduction scheme for airlines.

And so that is where we're seeing the market growing rapidly over the next years, and also touching quite likely higher prices than in the voluntary market. So we're seeing that as a very interesting tool to finance emission reduction projects in or across the world.

Esther Whieldon: To what extent do you need more agreement over the rules? I know there's some nuances to it that are still to be worked out at future COP gatherings. To what extent are you able to kind of move forward now versus need some additional answers?

Frédéric Gagnon-Lebrun: The accounting framework overall for tracking these transfers has been agreed in the Glasgow COP, and many developing countries and also countries that are actually buying carbon credits for the purpose of achieving their NDC are using those -- that rule book that was agreed between the parties to actually move forward and develop their own institutional frameworks, processes.

And that is really critical for us as a service provider and our partners to actually invest in emission reduction projects knowing that those carbon credits are going to be authorized by the host country government and also of interest to the ultimate buyer and user of those carbon credits in the context of the Paris Agreement.

So while there are still some negotiations and some -- and around the choice framework, we believe that much of the rules are in place because it really boils down to a bilateral relation between the two countries that are cooperating to -- in their climate action.

There are, yes, further negotiations on a new carbon crediting mechanism, the Article 6.4 mechanism that has not been adopted yet, and we are awaiting the next COP, hopefully, for the finalization of that mechanism, so that carbon credits can be generated under the UN framework in addition to the generation of carbon credits by independent standards.

Esther Whieldon: Was there anything we didn't get to that you wanted to mention? Any other points?

Frédéric Gagnon-Lebrun: I'd like to, yes, point out that we are seeing many regulatory developments, and it's probably useful to categorize them in three different types. And one of them is the regulation or carbon pricing policies of emitters to help countries achieve their Paris pledges and reduce emissions nationally.

And we're seeing emissions training systems or carbon pricing instruments being developed in several countries. There are, in fact, 68 emissions trading systems planned or in operation today. So this is an increasingly interesting tool that leverages carbon markets for countries to achieve their Paris pledges.

There are lots of developing countries mostly developing regulations and frameworks for the generation of carbon credits that actually meet the Article 6 requirements. And finally, we're seeing regulations that target the environmental claims that companies can make to avoid misleading claims and protect consumers. And so that's a space that is increasingly developing and, certainly, something to watch going forward.

Esther Whieldon: So today, we heard how voluntary carbon markets are evolving to restore market confidence in them. We also heard how voluntary markets can help to mobilize private capital to address climate change.

Lindsey Hall: Thanks for tuning into this miniseries on carbon markets. As we heard from our guests across these last two episodes, carbon markets are one part of the solutions to climate change and decarbonization. Please stay tuned as we continue to track how this topic plays out at COP29 later this year.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of ESG Insider. If you like what you heard today, please subscribe, share and leave us a review wherever you get your podcast.

Esther Whieldon: And a special thanks to our agency partner, The 199. See you next time.

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