Governing Carbon Markets with Distributed Ledger Technology

Carbon markets involve complex governance challenges, such as ensuring transparency of emissions, facilitating as well as recording transactions, overseeing market activity and preventing abuse. Conventionally, these have been addressed with a combination of regulatory, procedural and technical structures that impose significant burdens on market participants and administrators while remaining vulnerable to system shocks and illicit practices. Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) has the potential to address these problems. This volume offers the first book-length exploration of how carbon markets can be governed using DLT, offering conceptual and theoretical analysis, practical case studies, and a roadmap for implementation of a DLT-based architecture in major existing and emerging carbon markets. It surveys existing expertise on distributed ledger technology, provides progress updates from industry professionals, and shows how this technology could offer a cost-effective and sustainable solution to double-counting and other governance concerns identified as major challenges in the implementation of carbon markets.

Alastair Marke is the Director-General of the Blockchain & Climate Institute (BCI). He is an expert supporting the drafting of the ISO 14097 climate finance standard and a UK representative on the ISO 22739 blockchain and distributed ledger technologies standard (use case, smart contract and governance) working groups. He has also edited another pioneering book in this field – Transforming Climate Finance & Investments with Blockchains.

Michael Mehling is a Professor at the University of Strathclyde Law School and Deputy Director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is a Member of the Advisory Board of the Blockchain and Climate Institute.

Fabiano de Andrade Correa is the Director of Legal Research at the Blockchain and Climate Institute Secretariat. He is a lawyer and international consultant with over 15 years of experience across the private, public and international sectors, and serves as Deputy Chair of the Climate Change Law Specialists Group within the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law.