Absolute Climate

This is Peter Minor and Co-Founder of Absolute Climate. Peter breaks down MRV, Monitoring, Reporting and Verification in Legion 44 for those who have not encountered this essential process in the work of the CDR industry.  If we can’t verify the removal, we can’t sell it, if can’t sell it, there is no market. And if we can’t prove it, as Peter says, “we should be doing something else.” 🚀 To get into the details: Watch Legion 44 & participate in world-class verified removals while you are at it.  🌏 💫 💝 💪 https://lnkd.in/gB6w3JgP

We started Absolute Climate to ensure that credit claims always match climate impacts. Today, we’re announcing a partnership with Vesta, PBC to take that work into oceans for the first time. Over the coming months, we’ll co-develop the MRV framework and methodology for Coastal Carbon Capture and apply the Absolute Carbon Standard to marine carbon removal. This is an important step toward ensuring ocean-based carbon removal is consistently held to the same high bar for transparency, verification, and impact. If you’re at the Ocean Visions Conference, Vesta, PBC will be sharing more about our upcoming work during their session on Wednesday at 5:15pm. Come check it out!

Join the Absolute Climate team in NYC next week! Peter Minor will be at the Global Direct Air Capture Conference discussing how standards and contract law are driving the future direction of carbon markets. See you there!

Proud to share the latest episode of Na'im Merchant's "The Carbon Curve" featuring Absolute Climate co-founder Peter Minor and Evident’s Travis Caddy Last year, Evident adopted the Absolute Carbon Standard, bringing the first independent and incentive aligned certification solution to the carbon removal market. Together we’re derisking purchases, enabling Project Developers to differentiate their projects, and building a future where credit claims always match climate impacts. In this episode, Na’im, Peter, and Travis dive into how we create conflict-free mechanisms, the roles of Evident and Absolute Climate in offering independent certification, and the significance of separating key MRV responsibilities. You can listen in here: https://lnkd.in/geXyNFJs #carboncurve #carbonremoval

Today we’re proud to share that the Absolute Carbon Standard (ACS), the industry's first independent standard to define and assess carbon credit quality, has been published for public comment. The current carbon market is challenged by a lack of standardization and independence. Credits are sold as fungible units, even when projects are assessed using varying baselines, scopes, and evaluation criteria. Registries define quality and issue credits against it, leading them to prioritize volume over impact. The result is a low trust market with significant friction for buyers and project developers. The Absolute Carbon Standard is the first independent standard designed to ensure that project claims match their climate impacts. ACS separates standard-setting from credit issuance, ensuring credit quality is driven by real outcomes. It also uses a universal assessment model for all carbon removal pathways, enabling apples-to-apples comparisons between projects. Why ACS Matters: 1) Buyers: ACS’s independence gives you confidence and clarity that credit claims are defensible, reducing risks like greenwashing, and simplifies diligence 2) Project Developers: ACS’s consistency puts you on a level playing field, and makes it easier to differentiate your solution and attract buyers 3) Climate: ACS helps build a future where credit claims always match their credit impacts ACS is open for public comment until January 24th. We welcome and look forward to feedback. You can view and comment on the Absolute Carbon Standard here: https://lnkd.in/gCZSQ96c

🌍 Diving Deeper into Mitigation Types: A new explainer from Absolute Climate Meeting net zero goals requires tackling two challenges: decarbonizing active industries and removing CO₂ from the atmosphere. Yet, today’s carbon credit standards fail to distinguish these pathways, creating confusion for buyers and project developers. The Absolute Carbon Standard (ACS) solves this by introducing Mitigation Types, providing clear assessments of project impacts and aligning market mechanisms with measurable climate outcomes. 🔍 Why Mitigation Types Matter The IPCC makes clear that achieving net zero requires massive emissions reductions and scaling negative emissions: - Reductions drive emissions to zero by decarbonizing emitting sectors. - Removals counterbalance residual emissions and address historical CO₂ buildup. Both are critical: reductions offer efficient solutions for active industries, while removals are indispensable for reaching net-negative emissions. Unfortunately, today’s standards often conflate these pathways, slowing investment in both and creating risks for buyers and project developers. Mitigation Types solve this by introducing Recoveries and Restorations—credit labels that align market incentives with measurable climate outcomes. ⚖️ The Two Mitigation Types Recoveries: A label for credits that target the decarbonization of active industries. For example, capturing CO₂ from industrial processes. When looking at the IPCC Curve, recoveries represent the area above the x-axis and drive emissions to zero. Restorations: A label for credits that focus on removing and permanently storing atmospheric CO₂. Think projects like direct air capture or reforestation. Restorations represent the area below the x-axis and are the only way of generating the negative emissions for addressing residual and historical emissions. A project’s classification as a Recovery or Restoration is based on its emissions fluxes and net climate impact - not its CDR pathway. ✅ 3 Impacts of Mitigation Types - For Buyers: Mitigation Types enable targeted purchasing by distinguishing between Recoveries (decarbonization) and Restorations (negative emissions). This clarity reduces risk and ensures credits align with specific sustainability goals. - For Project Developers: The framework fosters innovation and differentiation, offering clear pathways to communicate project value and attract buyers while supporting funding and regulatory approval for both emerging and mature solutions. - Outcome-Driven: Mitigation Types are defined by the measurable impact on the climate, not by the technology used. This approach ensures transparency, consistency, and trust in carbon markets. Mitigation Types are a key piece of Absolute Climate’s mission to ensure that credit claims match climate impacts. If you have questions or would like to dive deeper into the Mitigation Types framework, please reach out. Read the full explainer here: https://shorturl.at/oY2VR

Today, Absolute Climate (AC) is sharing an explainer on a key concept of the Absolute Carbon Standard - Mitigation Classes. Mitigation Classes clearly distinguish between mature and emerging carbon removal projects, ensuring that credit claims always align with real climate impacts. By introducing transparent categories for credits, we can foster innovation without compromising on rigor or credibility. Why Mitigation Classes Matter: Current standards often face a difficult choice: maintain rigorous requirements that exclude emerging solutions, or loosen standards to accelerate growth at the expense of credibility. Unfortunately today’s standards often take a permissive approach, eroding trust and creating confusion for carbon removal buyers. Mitigation Classes solve this dilemma by providing distinct pathways for both mature and innovative projects, enabling buyers to easily understand what they’re investing in - and helping developers chart a clear path to maturity. The 3 Keys Here: 🔍 Clarity and Comparability: Two categories—Absolute Class for proven solutions and Innovation Class for early-stage approaches—ensure that buyers know exactly what they’re purchasing and developers have a transparent roadmap for growth. ⚖️ Support for Innovation and Scalability: Innovation Class lets early-stage projects focus on feasibility and development without being held to standards designed for mature pathways. Meanwhile, Absolute Class ensures that established projects meet the highest accountability standards. 💪 Building Trust and Accountability: By maintaining rigorous, science-based benchmarks and providing room for innovation, Mitigation Classes help the carbon removal market build confidence and scale responsibly. Mitigation Classes are a key piece of Absolute Climate’s mission to ensure that credit claims match climate impacts. If you have questions or would like to dive deeper into the Mitigation Classes framework, please reach out. Read the full explainer here: https://shorturl.at/IwJtK

🚨 Big news from Absolute Climate! 🚨 Today, we’re proud to announce the adoption of the Absolute Carbon Standard (ACS) by Evident, a trusted leader in sustainability certification. Together, we’re introducing a groundbreaking model to the carbon removal market, built on independence, consistency, and scientific rigor. This is a big deal for carbon removal: 🌍 Bringing independence and incentive alignment to credit issuance: The carbon removal market has long struggled with fragmented standards and conflicts of interest. With registries historically defining quality and issuing credits, market incentives have often prioritized volume over impact. Absolute Climate and Evident are separating these roles, mitigating conflicts of interest and ensuring that every credit issued is backed by independently developed, rigorous science-based criteria. ⚖️ A Universal and consistent standard: Unlike legacy standards that vary across pathways, the Absolute Carbon Standard applies the same criteria to every carbon removal project. This creates clarity and comparability, making it easier for buyers to trust the credits they purchase and for developers to differentiate their projects. 💪 A best in class registry for carbon removal: Evident brings over two decades of experience in global registry operations, certifying thousands of projects in more than 60 countries across voluntary and compliance markets. Their deep expertise, diversified business, and operating longevity bring a sophisticated and low risk registry to carbon removal. By adopting ACS into its C-Capsule platform, Evident ensures that carbon removal credits meet the highest standards of integrity and accountability. What this means for you: - Buyers: Derisk your credit purchases knowing that every credit claim matches it's climate impact. - Project Developers: Give certainty to your climate impacts. Differentiate your projects, attract high-integrity buyers, and scale with a trusted certification model. - The Climate: Build a future where credit claims always match their climate impacts. This partnership sets the foundation for a carbon removal market capable of scaling to gigatonne levels, with the credibility and trust it needs to succeed 🚀. 👉 You can learn more about ACS and our partnership with Evident in Business Insider and Heatmap News https://lnkd.in/g2vvH7WT https://lnkd.in/gDGSq-yq

🚀 Exciting News from Absolute Climate! 🚀 We are thrilled to announce the upcoming release of the Absolute Carbon Standard (ACS) – a groundbreaking approach to climate mitigation assessment. 🌍✨ The Absolute Carbon Standard expands upon existing carbon standards to ensure that project claims match climate impacts. ACS is the first industry wide-standard that evaluates projects using a universal and objective procedure, rather than pathway-specific methodologies. 🔍 Why ACS? - Consistent: ACS brings uniformity to climate mitigation evaluations, enabling apples-to-apples comparisons even for dramatically different technologies. - Specific: ACS introduces a new assessment model that directly evaluates a project’s impact on the climate, not just whether project activities match a methodology. - Transparency & Confidence: ACS enables simpler and more robust project assessment for buyers, while allowing project developers to showcase their climate impacts. 📚 Learn More Now! Over the next several weeks we’ll be publishing essays on the core components of ACS, culminating in the release of the full standard. We’ve already published the first two essays: a technical summary of ACS and a technical summary of the Anthropogenic Emissions Model. You can check them out here: https://lnkd.in/g9kHq4z3 🌟 Join Us on This Journey Stay tuned and be part of building a transparent and effective framework that drives meaningful climate action for a sustainable future. 👉 Read our full announcement and stay updated: https://lnkd.in/gfu3ndbr