WASHINGTON – January 19, 2024 | Verra-certified projects are now officially eligible to participate in the Chilean carbon market under a new environmental policy approved by the Ministry of the Environment. Exempt Resolution 1420 (external), published on December 28, 2023, recognizes qualified, external certification programs, including Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program, which issue units that can be traded in Chile’s domestic carbon market, helping Chile grow its carbon market, advance climate action, and meet its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
Point 17 of Resolution 1420 specifies that external certification programs like Verra’s VCS Program may now certify projects that participate in the Chilean carbon market, provided these programs ensure that the carbon credits they issue are additional, measurable, verifiable, and permanent; are globally recognized; and operate a public registry and assign unique serial numbers to their issued units.
To support the implementation of the VCS Program in Chile, Verra will hold in-person and virtual workshops for Chilean stakeholders. These workshops will provide training on the requirements of the VCS Program, an overview of the VCS methodologies with the greatest potential for use in Chile, and instruction on using the Verra Registry. The estimated annual demand potential of the Chilean carbon market is 30 million metric tons. The new environmental policy mandates that this demand is met by credits from projects located in Chile that have been issued since January 1, 2020.
Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) projects have the greatest potential to satisfy the demand associated with the Chilean carbon market, especially projects in categories such as Afforestation, Reforestation, and Revegetation (ARR), Agricultural Land Management (ALM), Improved Forest Management (IFM), and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD), specifically those that avoid forest degradation.
“Verra is excited to help grow the Chilean carbon market,” said Robin Rix, chief legal, policy, and markets officer at Verra. “One of our commitments under the New Era for Verra initiative is to collaborate with national governments to support them in setting and meeting increasingly ambitious national climate goals.”
As part of the New Era for Verra, a commitment to scaling Verra’s impact and engaging more actively with stakeholders, the organization is enhancing its work with governments to support capacity-building, provide technical assistance, and help channel finance toward countries’ work in meeting their Nationally Determined Contributions.
This work in Chile runs in parallel with Verra’s efforts in other countries. Verra currently has Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with governmental entities in Argentina, Benin, Mexico, Pakistan, Panama, and Singapore and is in the process of concluding additional agreements with additional national and subnational public entities in countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa and the Middle East, and the Asia Pacific region. Furthermore, the VCS Program is also eligible in other countries with domestic carbon markets, such as Colombia and South Africa. As Verra works to increase overall accountability and responsibility in the carbon marketplace, collaborations with governmental entities are essential to advancing impactful climate action.
For questions and inquiries, please contact:
Jeremy Warren | Senior Manager for Media Relations
jwarren@verra.org | 512-851-9133
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Verra is a global leader helping to tackle the world’s most intractable environmental and social challenges. As a mission-driven nonprofit organization, Verra is committed to helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve livelihoods and protect natural resources by working with the private and public sectors. We support climate action and sustainable development with standards, tools and programs that credibly, transparently and robustly assess environmental and social impacts and enable funding for sustaining and scaling up projects that verifiably deliver these benefits.