Cop 27: 'Avoided emissions’ key for climate action

Direct and indirect emissions categorized under official greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting standards fail to quantify 'avoided emissions' that are necessary to accelerate decarbonisation in line with a 1.5 °C pathway, a senior official of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) said today.

Speaking at the Cop 27 UN climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, WBCSD senior advisor Dominic Waughray said the GHG accounting concepts should stimulate innovation in clean technologies rather than serve as a compliance mechanism for carbon offsetting, which can be done by introducing avoided emissions guidelines as part of the GHG protocol.

Avoided emissions, for which there are currently no international standards, are emissions savings that occur outside of a company's value chain that can incentivise "all kinds of mechanisms to accelerate the shift [to net-zero] that we need," WBCSD said.

Japan's ministry for economy, trade and industry today called avoided emissions accounting standards a "key for enabling climate action", and that it will leverage WBCSD's proposed business guidance on the subject ahead of the country's G7 presidency next year.

WBCSD plans to launch the official guidance in early 2023, it said today.

By Florence Schmit