The United Nations Carbon Offset Platform is an e-commerce platform to compensate greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing carbon credits. Who among the following can buy these carbon credits? 1. A company 2. An organization 3. A citizen Select the answer using the code given below.

Correct — A, 1, 2 and 3. The United Nations Carbon Offset Platform was set up under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change as an online marketplace where certified emission reductions can be bought and retired. Its whole design point is that the buyer need not be a treaty party or a large emitter: a company, an organisation of any kind and an individual citizen can all purchase credits there to offset the emissions of a flight, an event or a year's activity. Credits sold on it come from projects registered under the Clean Development Mechanism, so every unit represents an emission reduction that has already been verified. All three categories in the list therefore qualify.

• (b)1 and 2 only — Excludes individuals, but the platform was built precisely so that a private person could offset personal emissions without going through a broker.
• (c)2 and 3 only — Excludes companies, which are among the platform's most frequent buyers.
• (d)1 only — Restricts purchase to companies alone, which is the narrowest and least defensible reading of an open marketplace.

A carbon offset is a certified reduction in greenhouse gas emissions achieved somewhere else, which a buyer purchases and retires to compensate for emissions they cannot avoid. The credits on the United Nations platform are certified emission reductions generated by projects registered under the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol — renewable energy, cookstove, methane capture and similar projects in developing countries. Retiring a credit means cancelling it so that it cannot be resold, which is what makes the offset real rather than a transfer of paper.

Questions on who may participate in an international mechanism are answered by asking what the mechanism is for. A compliance market — one where governments or covered installations must surrender allowances — is restricted by definition. A voluntary offset platform is the opposite: its purpose is to widen participation beyond the treaty parties, so the presumption runs towards inclusion. A useful contrast is the Clean Development Mechanism itself, where the projects had to be hosted in developing countries and the credits counted against the targets of industrialised parties; the retail platform sits on top of that architecture and opens the resulting credits to anyone.

• The United Nations Carbon Offset Platform is an online marketplace for certified emission reductions.
• Companies, organisations and individual citizens may all buy credits on it.
• The credits originate from projects registered under the Clean Development Mechanism.
• Buying and retiring a credit cancels it so that it cannot be sold again.
• Voluntary offset markets are distinct from compliance markets, where surrender of allowances is mandatory.

• Assuming an official United Nations mechanism must be restricted to governments or corporations.
• Confusing a voluntary offset platform with a compliance carbon market.
• Treating an offset as a reduction in the buyer's own emissions rather than a compensation elsewhere.

Asked as a who-may-participate item, decided by recognising that a voluntary offset platform is designed to be open rather than restricted.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Certified emission reductions traded on the United Nations Carbon Offset Platform originate under

  • (a)the Clean Development Mechanism
  • (b)the Montreal Protocol
  • (c)the Convention on Biological Diversity
  • (d)the Ramsar Convention

  Answer(a) the Clean Development Mechanism — the Kyoto Protocol's project-based crediting mechanism.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Retiring a carbon credit means that it

  • (a)is transferred to a government registry for resale
  • (b)is cancelled and cannot be sold again
  • (c)expires after ten years
  • (d)is converted into a renewable energy certificate

  Answer(b) is cancelled and cannot be sold again — which is what makes the offset genuine.