AUSTIN, TX / ACCESSWIRE / July 5, 2024 / David Goodnight, a resident of Austin, Texas, and Founder of Comnet International, emphasizes the need for unchallengeable credits to restore industry confidence. David highlights the ongoing challenges within the carbon credit market and the 4 key principles that new projects must embrace to revive the industry.
The once revered and well-intentioned voluntary carbon credit market is spiraling into a deeply criticized system that governments and corporations are increasingly hesitant to support due to the endless backfires of publicly failed projects. The underlying problem is that the industry was founded upon a broken model of forest protection or reforestation in emerging market economies. The superficial challenge is an industry unwilling to accept new methodologies founded in better science and technology. Thankfully, the "validators" of this industry will now be forced to support new and innovative solutions.
The majority of carbon offset projects are engineered upon protecting forests located in countries with high geopolitical risk. A University of Cambridge study discovered that only 5.4 million of 89 million potential forestation carbon credits could be linked to actual carbon reduction. It was recently discovered by the Guardian that 90% of the forest projects approved by the industry's leading validator are "worthless", forcing the CEO to resign in 2023.
Carbon projects with higher credibility are on the horizon, but each is being met with years of bureaucratic delays to receive "approval" from the top validators that have coincidentally, approved millions of deeply criticized "worthless" credits.
A carbon offset project should be rooted in 4 principles:
(1) Unquestionable scientific methodology in the calculation of the carbon impact.
(2) A term of 100 years or in perpetuity.
(3) Historical and consistent Rule of Law.
(4) Established geopolitical stability.
A typical forest project massively fails on all 4 of the above principles. New administrations change laws and do not honor previous agreements and there is no way to patrol a forest to determine that it will undoubtedly be "protected" for the agreed upon fixed term of a few decades.
Innovation from environmental scientists, technologists, and energy specialists will begin to surface. These next generation of carbon offset programs will be sophisticated, digitally trackable, and unchallengeable to such a degree that it will reignite the integrity. The current validators must begin to accept these new programs, or their control of the industry will steadily evaporate.
A noble attempt is Direct Air Capture (DAC); the removal of carbon from the air with colossal fans. These projects are capital intensive and draw a massive volume of fossil derived power, which essentially makes the project a "wash". If renewably powered, it's simply more impactful and logical to provide that energy to the grid to replace the fossil power. DAC projects will only exist with the financial support of the US 45Q $85 per ton carbon credit.
David Goodnight, a resident of Austin, Texas, is the Founder and Managing Partner of The Goodnight Group and Comnet International. The Goodnight Group is an investor-developer and Comnet International is a project finance and trade advisor. Both companies have separate interests to assist the volunteer carbon market and customers seeking to buy unchallengeable products.
Media Contact:
Company Names: Comnet International & The Goodnight Group
Contact Person: David Goodnight
City & Country: Austin, Texas
Email: [email protected]
Websites: www.comnetlimited.com and www.goodnightgroup.com
Twitter: https://x.com/goodnighttexas
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-goodnight-65864b237/
SOURCE: Comnet International & The Goodnight Group