With Every Tool Available

COP26 made it clear the tide has turned — everyone is suddenly focused on climate-change risks. Who had heard of “ESG” just three years ago? But the road is shrouded in fog as nations, corporations, and NGOs struggle to define the way forward.

The prime directive is clear: reduce the amount of carbon we’re pumping into the air. That means generating more clean energy, electrifying the supply chain, and preserving what’s left of our forests, wetlands, and viable ecosystems. It means empowering global markets to include environmental impact in the value of everything we consume (“S” & “G” soon to follow).

It also means embracing carbon offsets, which could funnel trillions of dollars to the developing world — which bears the brunt of climate calamities without having contributed to their cause. Those dollars, when channeled through programs that provide clear evidence of progress, are already working to preserve our dwindling resources, empowering impoverished communities to play a vital role in saving the one thing we all have in common.

Offsets are easy to throw rocks at, what with the handy “papal indulgence” critique. Only we’re not talking about coveting thy neighbor’s calf, we’re talking about a race with oblivion. It’s not easy math, figuring out how to quantify things like the carbon sequestered by individual trees. But we’re getting better at measuring—if you can’t measure it, you can’t value it—and we’ve learned to lock proof in digital ledgers so the data can be trusted.

A tenable future depends on saying “yes and” to every measurable method of removing carbon from the atmosphere.

There’s one consistently successful approach to motivating meaningful change: Reward responsible behavior. Just like we can buy organic fruit or free-range chicken, we should be able to purchase fuel from production facilities that control methane emissions. The challenge is that up to now, commodities have been treated like indistinguishable units; yellow Lego blocks stacked to the horizon. But it has become clear (with satellites measuring methane from space) that not all commodities are created equal.

Important work is being done by organizations like the Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets, established to set and enforce global standards for the carbon market, which is following the same evolution that all markets follow: from a fragmented, opaque hodgepodge in which participants flounder in paper and risk to a fully transparent, liquid global exchange, with spot and futures instruments traded under rigorous rules and governance regimes.

And with that new rigor comes greater confidence to make decisions. To take every available step to reduce carbon output, then offset whatever’s left. The time has come to pull together. We face a mountain of climate challenges, but if we focus our efforts on measurable solutions, we can move forward knowing we’re finally on the right path.