/ Papers / Realizing the social value of impermanent carbon credits
Journal paper in Nature Climate Change (vol 13 issue 11), Nov 2023
PDF   URL   BibTeX   DOI  

Abstract. Efforts to avert dangerous climate change by conserving and restoring natural habitats are hampered by concerns over the credibility of methods used to quantify their long-term impacts. Here we develop a flexible framework for estimating the net social benefit of impermanent nature-based interventions that integrates three substantial advances: (1) conceptualizing the permanence of a project’s impact as its additionality over time; (2) risk-averse estimation of the social cost of future reversals of carbon gains; and (3) post-credit monitoring to correct errors in deliberately pessimistic release forecasts. Our framework generates incentives for safeguarding already credited carbon while enabling would-be investors to make like-for-like comparisons of diverse carbon projects. Preliminary analyses suggest nature-derived credits may be competitively priced even after adjusting for impermanence.

Authors. Andrew Balmford, Srinivasan Keshav, Frank Venmans, David A Coomes, Ben Groom, Anil Madhavapeddy and Thomas Swinfield

See Also. This publication was part of the Trusted Carbon Credits project.

Previous Revisions. There are also earlier revisions of this paper available below. Please cite only the latest version of the paper above where possible.

(Older v1) Realising the social value of impermanent carbon credits
Andrew Balmford, Srinivasan Keshav, Frank Venmans, David A Coomes, Ben Groom, Anil Madhavapeddy and Thomas Swinfield
Working paper at Cambridge Open Engage, Jul 2023
URL   BibTeX   DOI  

News Updates

Sep 2024. «» Discuss the NbS risks paper.
Aug 2024. «» Discussion on the nature-based credits article.
Nov 2023. «» Paper on valuing impermanent carbon credits at Nature Climate Change, with cam.ac.uk coverage.
Jul 2023. «» Preprint of paper on valuing impermanent carbon credits.
Mar 2023. «» Discussion with Mantle Labs about carbon credits.
Nov 2022. «» Wednesday seminar on financing forests using carbon credits.
May 2022. «» Quoted in Vox article on carbon credits.
Sep 2021. «» Started maintaining (sporadically) a note on a forest preservation and restoration bibliography.