May 2025 Newsletter

A Message from Verra’s CEO

In the debates about the carbon markets, the voices that tell the real story are often drowned out.

These are the voices of the smallholder farmer in Kenya who earns food, firewood, and carbon finance from a single tree, and the farmer in India who has transformed a once-struggling land plot into an agroforestry project that generates income.

As I wrote in a recent op-ed (external) published by news24, we must not forget that “no other instrument is generating global emissions reductions while also delivering real climate finance to frontline communities at the [same] scale and the speed as the VCM.”

Verra’s newest methodology for the accelerated retirement of coal-fired power plants is a case in point. In a second new op-ed, I lay out how this methodology incentivizes the transition to clean energy by quantifying the climate benefits of early coal plant closures and requiring that retired coal capacity be paired with new renewable energy. At the same time, the methodology includes principles for a just transition in the form of socioeconomic protections, such jobs and affordable access to energy, for affected workers and communities.

This methodology illustrates what is true for all our work: Verra is committed to building high-integrity standards that mobilize finance and deliver real impact—for the planet and its people.