The carbon market and the role of offsets in climate change action

On Thursday, 10 March 2022 it was held the online seminar on Zoom platform organized by GdL Climate Change

WATCH THE VIDEO OF THE SEMINAR

The speeches are in Italian except at min. 31.42 the talk of the Professor Axel Michaelowa

Climate change mitigation requires a drastic and rapid decrease of CO2 emissions and other climate-changing gases. Energy saving, the increase of efficiency in producing and consuming energy, or the production of renewable energy, are realy important actions in the hand of public and private actors to provide themself to fight against global warming.

If direct action is not enough to reach the ambitious "zero emissions" goal, offsetting of residual emissions is possible through the purchase of "credits" arising from emission reductions or CO2 removals in other projects. The credits traded in the carbon market annually, regulated under the UN Climate Convention, now amount to several hundred million tons of CO2.

The Glasgow conference recently defined the new system of market mechanisms provided for in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which will become operational in the coming years.

The seminar organized by the working group Climate Change of the RUS (Universities Network for Sustainable Development) intends to provide an overview of the state of the carbon market, the different types of credits available to offset emissions, discussing their usefulness, the local or global environmental benefits and the critical issues detected in some projects, such as additionality of reductions or possible double counting with other interventions.

The event will be in Italian with the exception of the presentation in English by Axel Michaelowa, Professor at the University of Zurich and Director of the research group "International Climate Policy". Expert on the carbon market mechanisms of the Paris Agreement and the Kyoto Protocol, he was one of the negotiators of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and among the authors of the chapter on International Agreements of the 5th Report of the IPCC-Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Coordination of WG RUS Climate Change: Politecnico di Milano - Stefano Caserini, Professor of "Mitigation of Climate Change"

Presidency and Secretariat of the RUS – Rete delle Università per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile: Politecnico di Torino - Patrizia Lombardi, Presidente

Seminar Program

CLICK ON THE TITLE OF THE LECTURE TO DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATIONS

14.30 | 17.00

| Greetings and introductions

P. Lombardi | President of RUS - Italian University Network for Sustainable Development
S. Caserini | Coordinator of GdL RUS Climate Change INTRODUCTION

| Speeches