In some instances it is most cost-effective to curb emissions by supporting projects that reduce emissions. Credible Carbon has made the process of doing this simple and affordable. The registry only supports projects that reduce emissions and poverty simultaneously in the belief that this is the unavoidable twin challenge in Africa.

Climate change is a serious threat to us all. We have known this for a long time. We have also known that climate change has and is being caused by many of our actions which generate greenhouse gas emissions – especially in the form of carbon dioxide (CO₂).

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has been working to reduce global carbon emissions since 1997. One of the UNFCCC’s guiding principles is that all countries (and their citizens!) have a shared and differential responsibility to reduce their emissions. This means that we all have to work together to reduce emissions, but the heavier emitters have a greater responsibility.

The carbon market came into being as a mechanism to help heavy emitters, whose emission reduction actions come at a high cost, find lower cost ways to reduce their emissions. This is done through allowing high emitters to reduce their emissions by offsetting them with carbon credits bought from others, with lower emissions and lower costs of emission reduction. Thus the carbon market creates a win-win process – the heavy emitters benefit by reducing the cost of their emission reductions, while the lower emitters get financially rewarded for their emission reduction efforts. This happens at a country level, an individual business level and right down to individual people wishing to reduce their carbon emissions while benefitting low emitters. The main market mechanism to achieve this is called the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The CDM is being complemented at a regional and country level by many other, similar market instruments.