Managing uncertainty in carbon offsets: insights from California’s standardized approach

Haya, Barbara; Cullenward, Danny; Strong, Aaron; Grubert, Emily; Heilmayr, Robert; Sivas, Deborah A.; Wara, Michael

doi:10.1080/14693062.2020.1781035

Cited by 78 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…For carbon credits to be considered as offsetting GHG emissions, they must be both additional to the baseline scenario and permanent (Thamo and Pannell 2016). Recent studies have challenged the validity of assumed baseline scenarios under business as usual because the estimated soil carbon sequestered or GHG emissions produced in the absence of the offset may be inaccurate (Haya et al 2020).…”

Section: Pes Market Incentivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Payments for ecosystem services within the hybrid governance model: evaluating policy alignment and complementarity on California rangelands

Biggs¹,

Hafner²,

Mashiri³

et al. 2021

E&S

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Governance of global natural resources is increasingly hybrid, with complementary public and private sector initiatives layered on landscapes to improve environmental outcomes. The challenge of polycentric land use governance is alignment of goals across diverse governance mechanisms when agricultural producers, public agencies, and corporations have distinct motivations. This case study of soil carbon governance on California rangelands explores a new payment for ecosystem services (PES) initiative led by the food and agriculture industry, called the Ecosystem Services Market Consortium (ESMC). Applying hybrid governance theory to agricultural lands, we conduct an ex-ante policy evaluation of potential policy impact based on (i) alignment between corporate sustainability goals and ranchers' priorities and (ii) complementarity of the ESMC market with existing public and private policies enabling rangeland conservation. We found corporations developing the PES market to be motivated by carbon insetting, the objectives of which converge with ranchers' goals of preserving soils. Each policy offers distinct benefits and challenges, with synergies around climate change adaptation and soil health. As a new policy tool, carbon markets like the ESMC are positioned to meet demand for soil health financing, support resilience and ranch productivity, and improve ranchers' access to soil health data for adaptive management. Given carbon markets' outcome-based payment structure, we highlight the importance of complementary governance mechanisms that mitigate upfront risk with financial and technical support during the transition period, including Farm Bill cost-share programs and private sector financing tools. This policy evaluation highlights the challenges and opportunities surrounding rangelands soil carbon governance, particularly the trade-offs that ranchers, corporations, and society at large must consider for landscape-scale conservation programs.

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Section: Pes Market Incentivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Payments for ecosystem services within the hybrid governance model: evaluating policy alignment and complementarity on California rangelands

Biggs¹,

Hafner²,

Mashiri³

et al. 2021

E&S

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“…Cutting oil production is thus a vital step toward fulfilling climate goals -especially when significant uncertainties have been found in the effectiveness of California's carbon offset program (Haya et al, 2020). Future production at Cat Canyon would not only add to overall oil production in California, it would also signal support for increasing state output exactly when reductions are most necessary if climate targets are to be met.…”

Section: Conclusion: Oil Futures In Californiamentioning

confidence: 99%

California oil: Bridging the gaps between local decision-making and state-level climate action

Partridge

Barandiarán

Walsh

et al. 2020

The Extractive Industries and Society

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free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre-including this research content-immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.

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“…California has established a stringent MRV framework with the aim to ensure that all credits reflect genuine emissions reductions. Nonetheless, a recent study shows that there is methodological uncertainty in determining baseline emissions and additionality of GHG reductions in Mine Methane Capture (MMC) and Rice Cultivation projects (Haya et al 2020). These projects may even provide perverse economic incentives for the perpetuation of coal mining and for switching from crop to rice production, which could lead to increased GHG emissions in the long run.…”

Section: Offsetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…al 2017: 26). Moreover, although not perfect, California's MRV procedures for offsets were developed based on the European experience and the lessons learned from the implementation of Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) (Narassimhan et al 2018: 984;Haya et al 2020Haya et al : 1113. These Californian parameters, in combination with the MSR's demonstrated potential to address EU allowance oversupply, may encourage European policymakers to alleviate their potential concerns about California's offsets.…”

Section: Offsetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, CARB has been advised to update and strengthen the methodology for calculating emissions reductions from forest offset programs (Marino et al 2019). The Californian authorities should also assess and mitigate the risk of perverse incentives within eligible project types, as well as consider reinforcing the assessment of project additionality, narrowing down project eligibility criteria and conducting systematic analyses to diminish the risk of overcrediting (Haya et al 2020).…”

Section: Offsetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Linking the EU ETS with California’s Cap-and-Trade Program

Kotzampasakis

Woerdman

2020

CEREM

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Aim: This paper aims to evaluate the legal barriers and policy obstacles to linking the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) with California’s Cap-and-Trade Program in the United States, and to identify potential legal solutions to overcome them, by taking a law and economics perspective. Design / research methods: A qualitative law and economics analysis is performed by combining the legal-dogmatic method with insights from economic theory. Primary sources are the respective legal frameworks, ETS regulations, past linking agreements and relevant case law. Secondary sources include the relevant legal and economic literature, as well as policy documents, reports and press releases. Conclusions / findings: An EU-California linkage of emissions trading systems (ETSs) is legally feasible on the basis of an informal agreement, through reciprocal amendments to the respective ETS-regulations. Potential barriers could emerge, in particular from misaligned provisions regarding price containment measures and offsets. A gradual implementation of certain mutually beneficial ETS reforms, possibly in conjunction with initially restricted linkage, can provide momentum for transcending these barriers. Originality / value of the article: To date, no linking has taken place between emissions trading systems from different continents. This paper contributes to the legal-economic literature on linking the EU ETS with California’s Cap-and-Trade Program by performing an up-to-date analysis of its associated barriers and by providing concrete legal suggestions to possibly overcome them. Such a transatlantic linkage could enhance the cost-effectiveness of climate policy and contribute to the bottom-up expansion of carbon markets worldwide.

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Managing uncertainty in carbon offsets: insights from California’s standardized approach

Cited by 78 publications

References 22 publications

Payments for ecosystem services within the hybrid governance model: evaluating policy alignment and complementarity on California rangelands

Payments for ecosystem services within the hybrid governance model: evaluating policy alignment and complementarity on California rangelands

California oil: Bridging the gaps between local decision-making and state-level climate action

Linking the EU ETS with California’s Cap-and-Trade Program

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