Forest carbon offsets over a smart ledger

2021 has seen increasing climate policy action and net-zero commitments by individuals, companies and governments. A crucial aspect for the transition to net-zero is the voluntary offset market, with projects relating to REDD+ amongst the most popular. Policy-makers are grappling to make such markets efficient and scalable, however, many issues undermine these efforts pertaining to additionality, permanence, leakage and property and community rights. Digitisation has also accelerated, with technologies, notably blockchain, starting to enter the climate change space. Its use is becoming increasingly common within the voluntary market and, in particular, REDD+, although such projects, are generally in proposal or pilot stages. Given the emergence of other technologies such as AI and machine learning, the technologisation of REDD+ is only likely to increase. Thus modern technologies are being seen by developers as a potential solution to issues hindering REDD+. Potential benefits arising from technology use are unlikely to fully accrue without a wider focus on what has undermined REDD+ to date. As such, there is an urgency to establish an understanding of how projects can utilise these technologies to reduce long-standing issues. To do this, we discuss these issues together with technologies’ capacity to address drawbacks of REDD+ projects.