‘The NCS Investment Accelerator’: Why nature is crucial to climate recovery
Natural climate solutions must play pivotal role in the effort to reduce global emissions, but the market needs to be scaled rapidly, argue Guilia Carbone, Justin Adams and Claire O’Neill
Natural climate solutions (NCS) – activities that conserve, restore or improve the management of natural ecosystems, or managed lands, to increase carbon storage or reduce greenhouse gas emissions – can play a crucial role in helping society limit climate change to 1.5 degrees.
Estimates suggest that given sufficient investment, NCS could provide up to seven GtCO2e of climate abatement potential per year, and up to one third of the total climate mitigation efforts required by 2030. NCS also generate a multitude of positive outcomes that contribute to other challenges we face as a society, including conserving biodiversity in the midst of a nature loss crisis, and generating socio-economic benefits by providing sustainable rural livelihoods in the face of a global inequality crisis.
By investing in high-quality NCS credits to compensate for unabated emissions on the journey to a net zero state―in tandem with, but never replacing internal decarbonisation, at a rate consistent with reaching the Paris Agreement goals―business holds the key to unlock NCS’s potential.
It is this vision that underpins the launch of the NCS Investment Accelerator, by the Natural Climate Solutions Alliance, at COP26.
This accelerator has the ambitious goal of aggregating corporate demand for one Gigatonne of CO2e NCS emissions reductions and removals per year by 2025. A true aggregator, the NCS Investment Accelerator will recognise and combine the commitments that companies are making through other initiatives building demand for quality NCS credits, including forest focused NCS initiatives such as 1t.org and the LEAF coalition, and those made through business coalitions such as BASCS.
Bringing together NCS champions that publicly commit to invest in high-quality NCS will help overcome fundamental challenges to the use of NCS.
A strong demand signal for high quality credits will demonstrate to project and programme developers that demand for quality NCS carbon credits exists now and will grow. This signal will ensure that historic hurdles can be overcome, while simultaneously assuring critical stakeholders with the confidence they need to invest now to secure future credits.
At present, there is a reluctance to use NCS credits. However, by establishing a community of leading companies that are publicly committed to investing in high-quality NCS credits, and linking these commitments to a requirement that companies must simultaneously be taking action to decarbonise, the Accelerator will provide the confidence to invest in NCS in a way that raises their climate action and thus stimulate them to take this high-ambition action themselves.
Critically, the Accelerator will only include NCS credits commitments made by companies that can clearly demonstrate that they are taking credible climate action and necessary internal decarbonisation required at the level of each company in order to meet the Paris Agreement goals. The criteria to join reflect the guidance for the credible use of NCS credits by corporates captured in Natural Climate Solutions for Corporates, published by the Natural Climate Solutions Alliance.
The third challenge we face is unlocking the potential of compliance markets to scale the use of quality NCS credits. This could precipitate a step-change in the volume of financing available for these solutions. The integrity guidelines outlined by the Accelerator send a strong signal that high-quality NCS credits are possible, and can be used in a robust way when complementing internal decarbonisation consistent with the Paris Agreement goals. A strong demand signal demonstrates that government schemes can bring more supply online today – both will build confidence with policy makers as we move into COP26 negotiations and for domestic schemes.
The clock is ticking. We need to move fast and scale up widespread adoption of quality NCS credits if we are to take action and not only address the climate crisis, but also the crises of inequality and loss of biodiversity. The NCS Investment Accelerator will prove to be a valuable linchpin on this mission.
This article co-authored by Giulia Carbone, director of the Natural Climate Solutions Alliance and Justin Adams, executive director of the Tropical Forest Alliance at the World Economic Forum and co-director of the Platform to Accelerate Nature-based Solutions
