The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn parallels to how we will address the climate crisis, and many of us have forged ahead in our work to prevent the worse climate change scenarios from becoming reality. Over the past several months, as the global community’s attention has been diverted to the health and wellbeing of our friends and family, the livelihood of our local communities, and economic recoveries, we’ve looked for some glimmer of hope and good news. We’re very excited to share with our community a dose of good news – together, we’ve achieved the milestone of over 150 million offset credits issued from the Climate Action Reserve!
For me, this milestone is symbolic and significant on many levels. It represents 150 million tonnes of CO2e that would have been emitted into or remained in the atmosphere. What does that mean? It’s the equivalent to 372,208,436,725 miles driven by an average passenger vehicle or charging 19,129,833,321,353 smartphones. It’s a significant amount, although, we recognize it is only a start and we still have much more work to do.
It also represents the power of what we can accomplish together. The Reserve was founded on the concept of collaboration among different sectors and we continue to support and uphold that belief in all of our work. Achieving over 150 million tonnes of emissions reduction and sequestration required the work, support and ideas of nonprofit organizations, companies in the private sector, academia and government. These groups have been involved with elements of our work in both the voluntary and compliance markets.
And it represents a level of success in our work to address climate change as an environmental nonprofit organization. The Reserve’s mission is “To develop, promote, and support innovative, credible market-based climate change solutions that benefit economies, ecosystems, and society.” I’m extremely proud to work alongside dedicated, passionate colleagues here at the Reserve and with an engaged Board of Directors to strive towards that mission. In a few years, we’ll be approaching the 15-year anniversary of the Reserve program, and I’m looking forward to seeing what we all accomplish together when we reach that milestone.
A big thank you to the project developers that helped make this achievement possible. It takes a lot of dedication and hard work to bring an offset project to fruition, and achieving this milestone couldn’t be possible without the support of:
Please check out our infographic for a closer look at the Reserve’s 150 million offset credits:
https://climateactionreserve.org/blog/2020/05/01/a-closer-look-at-the-reserves-150-million-offset-credits/