The Global Carbon Market Utility (GCMU), a public utility designed to provide the necessary infrastructure for a trustworthy carbon market, today joined others to applaud the United States Government’s release of new principles endorsing the voluntary carbon market (VCM) as a crucial mechanism for accelerating global decarbonization.
“Market participants should see these principles as a sign of U.S. Government commitment to scale the voluntary carbon market, which could channel tens of billions of urgently needed dollars toward our climate goals. We are committed to doing our part by helping design and build the nimble market infrastructure needed to meet the climate challenge,” said Chris Canavan, CEO of the Global Carbon Market Utility. This welcome inter-agency effort underscores U.S. commitment to using carbon markets to help address the climate crisis. We are encouraged by this endorsement, and by the important initiatives undertaken by the Departments of State, Treasury, Energy, and Agriculture, as well as the SEC and CFTC.”
Today’s announcement was made jointly by U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy John Podesta.
Companies around the world must do everything possible to reduce carbon emissions by orders of magnitude as soon as possible. While reduction remains the goal, the VCM is an important tool for offsetting emissions, especially in hard-to-abate sectors of the global economy. To have an impact on the climate, the voluntary carbon market must grow dramatically from $2 billion today more than $50 billion over the next few years.
The GCMU is committed to meeting the challenges involved in scaling the VCM, which will have to evolve substantially to ensure rigor, adequate transparency, and accountability. To scale, the VCM will need to attract a broader range of buyers and market participants, including financial institutions, NGOs, and corporations.
A large, well-functioning VCM will require:
- Sensible environmental, market, supervisory, accounting, and disclosure regulation that fosters confidence, growth, and market participation;
- Integrity and transparency across supply and demand and in the market infrastructure, including through adherence to the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market’s Core Carbon Principles and the Voluntary Carbon Market Initiative’s Claims Codes of Practice;
- Robust oversight and governance that guarantee transparency and independence across all participants in the VCM;
- Broad support and regular engagement with civil society, which is essential to shaping a high integrity market and ensuring the VCM benefits the climate; and
- Sustainable operating models that reduce VCM participants’ dependence on philanthropic capital.
About the Global Carbon Market Utility:
The Global Carbon Market Utility is a public utility designed to provide the infrastructure necessary to manage a trustworthy carbon market—including data management, contracts, audits, verification, and dispute resolution. This infrastructure will enable financial intermediaries, like banks and insurance companies, to enter the market, provide project financing, and house risk for end-buyers. The GCMU will directly plug into existing financial and regulatory infrastructure, helping to fill critical climate funding gaps quickly. The GCMU was launched at COP27 in 2022 and is supported jointly by Three Cairns Group and Bloomberg Philanthropies.
About Three Cairns Group:
Three Cairns Group is a mission-driven investment and philanthropic firm focused on the climate crisis, founded by Lise Strickler and Mark Gallogly. Three Cairns Group incubated and developed the Global Carbon Market Utility. Three Cairns Group’s goal is to develop and support cross-sector initiatives to accelerate the clean energy transition and drive transformative, equitable progress through three primary strategies: investments in innovating and scaling climate solutions; philanthropy supporting a pipeline of innovative leaders, projects, and organizations to catalyze equitable climate solutions; and incubation of projects to fill gaps at the intersection of climate, finance, and people, and develop organizations that can drive climate action at scale.
