Concept

In recent years, a wide array of non-state and subnational actors have made an unprecedented number of voluntary climate commitments. These voluntary climate actions have several aims, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and building climate resilience. Together, these actions can contribute significantly to the achievement of the Paris Agreement.

Yet, non-state and local actors’ environmental claims are often unsubstantiated. Some voluntary actions rely on the deployment of controversial carbon offsets or the use of debatable technologies (e.g., for carbon capture and storage). This raises questions of integrity and suspicions of greenwashing. Integrity is therefore key to realizing the promise of voluntary climate action by many actors, and to preventing and combatting the effects of climate change. 

ACHIEVE aims to identify opportunities to strengthen and scale up high-integrity voluntary climate action towards achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century. Specifically, ACHIEVE will:

• generate transformative and timely scientific insights into the role, effectiveness, and integrity of voluntary climate action (including carbon credits);
• assess the integrity and impacts of such action;
• analyse how policies and regulations and high-integrity voluntary climate action can strengthen each other;
• and use scientific findings to support the scaling up of high-integrity voluntary action.