As governments, corporations, and other organizations around the world continue to set and work toward greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation goals, carbon markets will play an increasingly important role. Specifically, the voluntary carbon market (VCM) is poised to grow as corporations use carbon credits to offset their emissions and make claims of carbon neutrality. However, there is debate regarding best practices for claiming mitigation outcomes tied to VCM credits. One side argues that any carbon credit needs to be coupled with a corresponding adjustment, which functions to ensure the mitigation outcome is only accounted for by the carbon credit claimant. The other side argues that the practice of double claiming should be allowed when carbon credit project developers and claimants are different reporting entities, such as corporations and governments. This paper contributes to this debate by considering the potential for municipalities to develop carbon credit projects and raise money for local GHG reduction efforts. Many municipalities around the world have already developed climate action plans which identify locally relevant GHG reduction measures; however, there are few examples of municipalities leveraging the VCM as a climate finance mechanism. Here, an illustrative example with the City of Flagstaff, AZ demonstrates how the practice of double claiming mitigation outcomes can enable the transfer of climate finance from corporations with GHG reduction targets to municipalities with underfunded climate action plans.
McNamara et al. (Thu,) studied this question.