MINNEAPOLIS—Today, the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets, led by Mark Carney, United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Action and former Bank of England governor, launched its new report on the financial industry’s engagement with voluntary carbon markets. The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) criticized an initial draft of the report in December, pointing to numerous ways these markets can be gamed by poorly regulated markets resulting in a diverting capital from more direct emissions reduction investments.

In reaction to the findings of the report, IATP’s Senior Policy Analyst Steve Suppan expressed concern over the financial industry’s blueprint for scaling up carbon markets.

"Of the 160 respondents to the Taskforce’s consultation questions about the initial draft, IATP was among the 27% that did not endorse the draft report. After reviewing the summary of the final report, we continue to have unallayed concerns, including: 1) the ability of a yet to be constituted Taskforce governing council to ensure the scientific and accounting integrity of the emissions offset projects that are underlying asset of tradable offset credits; 2) the ability of the governing council to ensure secondary (derivatives) market integrity, since both exchanges and large financial institutions have succeeded in reversing regulatory reform to secondary markets that followed the financial market insolvencies of 2007-2009; 3) and the ability of emissions trading to discover a sustained and sufficiently high carbon price signal to drive direct and very large corporate emission reduction and adaptation investments before irreversible climate tipping points begin in about 2030.”

Download a copy of the media statement here.