US to Advance Carbon Offset Standards to Prevent Greenwashing
- Norms needed to drive integrity and investment, Podesta says
- US seeks to ensure companies reduce their own pollution
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The US soon will unveil tougher standards meant to drive greater integrity for carbon markets — a bid to ensure the trading regimes drive real emission reductions and not just greenwashing.
Climate adviser John Podesta said Friday the US will be calling for carbon credits to represent real, additional and permanent emission reductions that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. The US also will make clear the regimes must avoid carbon leakage, where reductions in one area are simply replaced by increased pollution elsewhere. The standards will also make clear companies should not use carbon credits to substitute for or delay in investments in reducing their own emissions, Podesta said.