© It’s the Planet 2008

Terms of Use

Ecological carbon credits and the carbon market

The carbon market is divided at present into two sectors: the compliance market, which falls at the international level under the Kyoto treaty, and other regional or national carbon reduction regimes (such as the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme), and the voluntary market.  Voluntary carbon offsets function outside of the compliance markets and enable companies and individuals to purchase carbon offsets on a voluntary basis.  Although much smaller than the compliance market, the voluntary market is growing rapidly.  

As of September 2007, only 10 afforestation/reforestation projects had been registered with the The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto protocol.  All other forms of biological sequestration or land use based emissions reduction activities, included of avoided deforestation, are not currently allowed under the Kyoto protocol.  However, deforestation remains a serious problem and contributes significantly to climate change.  The CDM was also supposed to provide sustainable development benefits for the host countries, but in practice this has rarely been the case.  

It's the Planet’s mission is to secure carbon credits that we believe they more closely fulfil the three ethical principles of permaculture, that we also support: Earth care, people care, and fair shares for all.  Therefore, we have chosen carbon credits from the voluntary market, for the following reasons:

Earth care and people care

Voluntary market projects often have more ‘value-added’ characteristics, especially environmental protection and sustainable development benefits, that go beyond the greenhouse gas reduction benefits of the projects themselves.  Such benefits include promoting sustainable livelihoods and well-being, improving ecosystems, promoting biodiversity, climate change adaptation and increasing social capital through local capacity building.  All of these activities build resilience in the face of climate change at the community level, where it counts most.  

Voluntary projects can be of special benefit to small projects, which in most cases are unattractive for the compliance market, due to the higher cost involved of developing these smaller scale, community based projects under compliance market rules, but they are a viable source of credits for the voluntary market where suitable verification standards exist.

There is a continued demand for credits produced using systems not currently covered by the CDM framework, such as forest conservation and restoration. Such projects can be invaluable where there is a perceived ‘policy gap’ in the international policy framework.

Fair shares for all

One of the greatest challenges of climate protection is how to achieve the deep global emissions reductions required while also addressing the development needs of the poor.  Historically, developed nations have been responsible for a much larger share of the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations than developing countries.  Industrialised countries could, through offsets, helped finance the transition to low carbon economy is in developing nations.  This has not been the case so far because the emissions reductions undertaken under Kyoto have been too small to be significant, so avoiding the kind of restructuring that is needed to achieve climate stabilisation.

The voluntary carbon market enables those in unregulated sectors and countries that have not ratified Kyoto, such as the U. S., to offset their emissions, thereby funding the development of low carbon technologies and innovations in developing countries. Many voluntary projects are in majority world countries, which are currently under-represented in the compliance market, particularly in Africa, where currently only 1% of in the the compliance market credits (CERs) originate.

Our chosen carbon credits

The UK Parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee report (“The Voluntary Carbon Offset Market”, July 2007) recommended that a project should have, in addition to emissions reductions, definite environmental and sustainable development benefits.  We have chosen Plan Vivo carbon credits because of these additional benefits.   

Plan Vivo requires that all its projects provide additional benefits to the local environment and community through the development of sustainable land use systems, planting of native species, and promotion of sustainable and improve livelihoods through the diversification of income sources.

Left: tree nursery in the Trees for Global Benefit project, Bushenyi, Uganda