Dive Brief:
- A group of 30 voluntary carbon market stakeholders — including businesses, nonprofits and public sector organizations — have joined forces to launch an initiative to boost carbon markets and harmonize data for carbon credits and projects.
- The Carbon Data Open Protocol, launched Tuesday, aims to “create the processes and definitions for greater standardization, transparency and fungibility to improve integrity and dramatically scale carbon markets,” according to a press release.
- The initiative is spearheaded by four co-chairs: the Global Carbon Market Utility, a financial services organization dedicated to building carbon market infrastructure; Sylvera, a carbon data provider; RMI, a nonprofit focused on sustainability and decarbonization solutions; and S&P Global Commodity Insights, a subsidiary of Standard and Poor’s that provides ratings, analytics and benchmarks on energy transition markets and energy commodities.
Dive Insight:
CDOP will build on various industry and market-wide carbon market initiatives, and complement the work being done by several climate-focused organizations and platforms, according to the release. This will include work done by the Climate Action Data Trust; the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market; and the World Bank’s Carbon Market Infrastructure Working Group, among others. The new protocol will also “maximize alignment” with frameworks that fall under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement — an objective CDOP’s co-chairs called crucial.
That article of the climate treaty sets guidelines for how countries can collaborate to achieve their climate targets. Article 6 was approved at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, with the aim of boosting international cooperation and sustainable development, as well as helping unlock financial support for developing countries, per the 2021 update to the global climate accord.
Climate negotiators commenced last year’s COP29 by approving Article 6.4, also known as the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism. Article 6.4 identifies and supports verifiable emission reduction projects and helps draw funding needed for implementation. The mechanism also encourages cooperation among countries and companies interested in utilizing such projects to reduce their carbon footprint, according to the Paris Agreement.
CDOP is an important step toward harmonizing voluntary carbon markets and related data, as market stakeholders generally lack an “accepted and commonly used protocol for project and credit data,” according to the release. This lack of homogenous standards, hence, impedes collaboration and data-sharing efforts and hinders the market’s full potential of driving impactful climate action, the group said.
The four-chair committee aims to work with other stakeholders across the voluntary carbon sector over the course of 2025 to establish a set of principles that will propose definitions and rules that “standardize data describing carbon crediting projects and carbon credits across markets, geographies, and activity types.” The group also plans to “put forward a governance framework for maintaining and updating the protocol,” per the March 18 release.
The first iteration of CDOP’s framework is expected to be unveiled at New York Climate Week later this year.
