Ensuring Carbon Offset Integrity

About Ensuring Carbon Offset Integrity

Overall, a superb course. Dr. Trexler‘s comprehensive knowledge allows him to simplify a fairly muddy discussion. He’s able to take a big subject and boil it down to the essential simpler parts. This is a huge plus for viewers. I especially liked the non-polemic tone. This is clearly an educational course, not a partisan viewpoint. Well done!

Jeffrey Atkin // CEO, World Forest Group

I really appreciated the Climatographers' Carbon Offsets Course. It’s amazing how hard it is to find good resources and thinking like this on carbon offsets. None of my typical channels/NGOs surface things like this!

Max Scher // Senior Mgr Sustainability, Salesforce

When it comes to climate change, few mitigation efforts have been as popular or as contentious as carbon offsets. The arguments involved are many, complicated, and polarizing. This course will synthesize much of the carbon offset thinking and literature of the last 30 years and point you to hundreds of hours of carbon offsets knowledge curation in the Climate Web.

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Module 1: Introducing the Course

1 Lesson

Course Background

Module 2: Introducing Carbon Offsets

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What Came Before Carbon Offsets?

The Magnitude of the Opportunity

Something There for Everyone

Taking Climate Policy by Storm

Where Have Offsets Come From?

Carbon Offsets as a Policy Commodity

Module 3: Defining Carbon Offsets

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Additionality

Permanence

Leakage

Baseline Forecasting

Monitoring and Verification

So What Does the Perfect Offset Look Like?

Module 4: Carbon Offset Critiques

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Common Offset Critiques

Are Removals Better Than Avoidance?

Are Renewable Energy Credits Offsets?

Module 5: Additionality Deep Dive

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Why Additionality Is So Hard

The Critical Importance of Additionality

How Additional Are Offsets?

NDCs and Carbon Offsets

Time to Drop Additionality?

Module 6: Taking Stock - Where Are We Now?

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Explaining False Positive Offsets

What Have We Learned?

Gaming of Offsets

The Confidence Continuum

Time to Score Offsets?

Module 7: From Offsets Round 1 to Offsets Round 2

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Round 1 Take-Aways

Questions Going Into Round 2

Round 2 Offset Supply And Demand

Round 2 and Nature-Based Solutions

Evaluating the Resilience of Nature-Based Solutions

Module 8: So You Want to Buy Carbon Offsets?

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Carbon Offset Due Diligence

Evaluating Offset Providers

Should You Offset?

Time to Invest in Carbon Offsets?

Time to Switch to Carbon Contribution Claims?

Module 9: More Offset Resources

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Course Take-aways

Offsets in the Climate Web

Digging Deeper into Carbon Offsets in the Climate Web

About the Instructor

Mark Trexler

Dr. Mark Trexler worked on the first carbon offset project while on the staff of the World Resources Institute in Washington, DC, and worked extensively with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on carbon offset and natural climate solution topics. He has participated in the development of and due diligence on hundreds of carbon offset projects, and his team at EcoSecurities (one of the early major carbon market players in) developed the first carbon offset scoring system. Mark has advised clients around the world on climate change risk and risk management, co-authored the first textbook on business climate risk, teaches climate change mitigation at George Washington University, and co-developed the Climate Web decision-support system. He holds advanced degrees from the University of California at Berkeley.

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