Statement – UK government’s principles for Voluntary Carbon and Nature Market Integrity

The UK government’s principles for Voluntary Carbon and Nature Market Integrity send a strong signal about the important role that high-integrity carbon markets play in accelerating climate action. They align closely with the Integrity Council’s view on the importance of high-integrity in both what constitutes high-integrity credits and how they should be used – as a complement to rapid value chain decarbonisation.

We welcome the UK’s decision to consult on endorsing our work. The Core Carbon Principles are an independent global standard for what constitutes a high-integrity carbon credit. Government alignment like this will help bring consistency to the market, ensuring carbon crediting are well governed and issue credits that result in genuine greenhouse gas emission reductions and removals.

The UK is the latest in a series governments and regulators that have shown their support for the Core Carbon Principles including the US government, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

We are in a climate emergency and we need to use every tool in the box to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C. High-integrity carbon credits can mobilise private finance at scale for projects to reduce and remove billions of tonnes of emissions that would not otherwise be viable. They can also channel significant climate finance to countries in the Global South.