1 year ago
74 US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry speaks astatine the opening of the US Pavilion during the COP27 clime league astatine the Sharm el-Sheikh International Convention Centre, successful Egypt's Red Sea edifice metropolis of the aforesaid name, connected November 8, 2022.
Ahmad Gharabli | AFP | Getty Images
U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry connected Wednesday unveiled a c offset plan that would let corporations to money renewable vigor projects successful processing countries that are struggling to modulation distant from fossil fuels.
The program, called the Energy Transition Accelerator, is successful concern with philanthropic groups similar the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bezos Earth Fund and volition beryllium finalized implicit the coming year. Officials reason it could funnel billions of dollars from the backstage assemblage into the economies of processing countries moving to displacement to renewable powerfulness sources similar upwind oregon solar.
The program volition make a caller people of c offsets that correspond investments successful projects that assistance accelerate renewable vigor projects oregon physique clime alteration resilience successful a processing country. Businesses tin bargain these offsets to equilibrium retired immoderate information of their CO2 emissions, and the wealth volition spell to these projects.
Chile and Nigeria are among the processing countries funny successful the program, the State Department said, and Bank of America, Microsoft, PepsiCo and Standard Chartered Bank person "expressed involvement successful informing the ETA's development."
Voluntary c offset programs person been wide criticized arsenic insufficiently regulated schemes that let governments and corporations to undermine net-zero emanation targets. Reports person shown, for example, that onshore managers are not changing their logging practices successful immoderate forests wherever offsets were purchased, and that immoderate stands of timber that were supposedly "saved" had already been preserved and weren't slated for logging anyway.
In bid to bargain these credits nether the caller program, companies indispensable perpetrate to execute net-zero emissions by 2050 and study annually connected emissions arsenic good arsenic advancement toward the target, according to a draught of the plan. Fossil substance companies are besides not allowed to enactment successful the program.
But respective large biology groups said they are not supporting the plan, arguing the connection lacked details and could yet undermine efforts to trim planetary emissions.
Rachel Cleetus, argumentation manager with the clime and vigor programme astatine the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the connection fails to conscionable the urgency of the clime situation and is not a substitute for the nationalist concern that processing countries necessitate to displacement distant from fossil fuels.
"Carbon offsets are not an reply successful a satellite already connected fire, nether h2o and facing mounting clime losses and damage," Cleetus said. "A voluntary c recognition programme won't warrant deep, existent cuts successful emissions — it's tantamount to rearranging the platform chairs arsenic the clime vessel is going down."
World Resources Institute CEO Ani Dasgupta said successful a connection that the programme "has to guarantee guardrails for however companies enactment and that the backing advances processing countries' ain priorities for a conscionable vigor transition."
Kerry announced the connection astatine the United Nations Climate Change Conference successful Egypt, besides called COP27. The acme has successful portion focused connected directing backing to assistance mediocre nations retrieve from nonaccomplishment and harm caused by clime change.
