We developed two new tools for mapping Zarr data:
zarr-layer renders a wide range of datasets with little or no modification. And topozarr adds multiscale overviews and web-friendly chunking to datasets while maintaining projection and resolution. carbonplan.org/blog/zarr-la...

Institutions submitting to CDRXIV can build up a substantial body of work over time — but there hasn’t been an easy way to share that work as a collection. Channels fix that, making an institution’s submissions viewable in one place. We’re launching this new feature with three founding channels.

NCAR is the backbone of Earth system science in the US and a global leader in open climate research. It directly supports our mission. Alongside a wide range of peers in the scientific research community, we submitted a letter to NSF strongly opposing any efforts to dismantle or restructure NCAR.

Taking the goal of net negativity seriously has surprising implications for CDR policy design. It can help resolve sticky questions that have occupied the CDR space for years, including which activities to finance, how to deal with their unique characteristics, and how to choose accounting rules.

Advocates of public funding for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies promise that it will unlock the ability to reduce global temperatures. But that promise will only hold if CDR policymaking aligns with a coherent vision of a net-negative future.

Let’s reframe the CDR policy conversation – CarbonPlan CDR policies must align with a coherent vision of a net-negative world.

Our new report, written in collaboration with the Carbon Removal Standards Initiative, presents a framework for policymakers to connect the dots between future net negativity and the practical decisions that underpin public investments in early-stage technologies.

carbonplan.org/blog/cdr-pol...

Thanks all who gave feedback incl @a2-alliance.bsky.social @moira.bsky.social Jen Brady @madisoncondon.bsky.social @consumerwatchdog.bsky.social Kristy Dahl, Susan Dickerson-Lange @hoffnoah.bsky.social @zacklabe.com Alex Martin @guillaume-mauger.bsky.social Adam Parris, Crystal Raymond, Heather Wong

We’re excited to see what’s possible when building-level climate risk data is fully transparent. If you analyze wildfire risk, we’d love to compare results. If you are trying to assess and plan for climate hazards, we’d love to hear if Open Climate Risk is helpful to you, and how it might improve.

Open Climate Risk – CarbonPlan Explore fire risk across the contiguous U.S.

We've also created a map tool that allows you to explore, download, and analyze the dataset at a variety of aggregations (from state, to county, to census block), and a collection of articles that explain the resource, and the choices behind it, in detail. carbonplan.org/research/cli...

In contrast, Open Climate Risk demonstrates how to produce truly open estimates: the wildfire risk dataset and modeling methods that drive our projections are inspectable by anyone.
carbonplan.org/research/cli...

Making climate risk data open – CarbonPlan Building-level wildfire risks for now and the future, across the United States.

As communities face crucial decisions about how to adapt to climate change, they need high-quality risk assessments. But these data are expensive to access, and when models are kept proprietary, the quality of their resulting risk scores is impossible to evaluate through intercomparison.

Today we’re launching Open Climate Risk, a fully open option for U.S. building-level climate risk data. It’s unique because it allows you to see not only risk scores, starting with wildfire, but also the complete underlying dataset, methods, and codebase. carbonplan.org/research/cli...

Consistent temporal accounting supports credible CDR use – CDRXIV Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is increasingly used to support national targets and corporate net-zero commitments, yet the timing of atmospheric drawdown remains poorly represented in carbon accounting...

Consistent temporal accounting supports credible CDR use. cdrxiv.org/preprint/302

Consistent temporal accounting supports credible CDR use – CDRXIV Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is increasingly used to support national targets and corporate net-zero commitments, yet the timing of atmospheric drawdown remains poorly represented in carbon accounting...

We show that ignoring or inconsistently treating these lags can undermine “neutralization” claims, and change climate outcomes. Thanks to Bodie Cabiyo, @chrfield.bsky.social, Kevin Fingerman, Kyle Hemes, and @hausfath.bsky.social for their collaboration on this piece. 2/2

cdrxiv.org/preprint/302

The need to consistently account for time in CDR – CarbonPlan We collaborated on a new preprint that establishes clearer language for talking about temporal lags in CDR, and shows how ignoring them can drive near-term warming.

Most carbon removal projects don’t pull CO₂ from the atmosphere instantly — there are temporal lags. We contributed to a new preprint showing why accounting for lags matters for both near-term warming and long-term temperature stabilization. 1/2

carbonplan.org/blog/cdr-tem...

Our own market oversight work fundamentally depends on knowing a project’s location. That’s the only way we can know when a project burns, or if there is something off with its baseline. Standard setting bodies need to help make project location data more widely accessible. 2/2

We’ve added boundary data for forest offset projects to OffsetsDB – CarbonPlan Knowing the location of offsets projects enables more robust market oversight. We’ve added geographic information for 500 forest offset projects to OffsetsDB to assist those efforts.

Carbon market oversight requires knowing the location of individual offset projects. That’s why we’ve added project location information for 500 forest offset projects to OffsetsDB. These data were released by Renoster last year and, by bringing them into OffsetsDB, we hope they find wider use. 1/1

New data added to the Compliance Users tool – CarbonPlan We updated the Compliance Users tool to include the latest available cap-and-trade program data about who used which offsets in 2024.

New CARB cap-and-trade data is out — and we’ve added it to our Compliance Users tool. With the tool, you can search compliance data by offset project, regulated company, or emitting facility, and explore the connections between them.
carbonplan.org/blog/complia...

Verra should address its hydropower offsets problem – CarbonPlan If Verra cares about quality, they need to clean up their growing supply of excess hydropower credits.

Verra recently took action on excess crediting for the disgraced Kariba project. We think the hydropower issue is potentially 10× larger. If Verra doesn’t consider these credits to be excess — and in need of a Kariba-like remedy — it owes the market a compelling explanation for why.

Chart showing hydropower credits issued by Verra before and after 2019. Source: OffsetsDB.

Hydropower offset credits are widely viewed as some of the least credible in the market — but Verra is issuing more and more of them. Nearly 70 percent of all hydropower credits on Verra’s registry were issued after it banned new hydropower projects in 2019.

Preprints in Carbon Dioxide Removal At CDRXIV, we want to understand how carbon removal researchers think about preprints. Your responses to this survey will help us gather those perspectives. The results will be anonymized and shared p...

Calling all CDR researchers — we want to hear from you! Share your perspective on the current role of preprints in CDR research via this survey, open until Dec. 15th. Results will be anonymized, synthesized, and shared publicly. Thanks in advance! forms.gle/F7VkxJKM7qW9...

A letter from our Board President and Chair – CarbonPlan Jeremy reflects on CarbonPlan's first six years, and shares about a moment of growth for the team.

Nearly six years ago, Jeremy Freeman began as CarbonPlan’s Executive Director, and we’re so grateful for his leadership. Today is another moment of growth for us, as Jeremy steps down from that role, while remaining President and Chair of the Board. In this blog post he shares about our next steps.

Verra doesn’t have a good solution for excess crediting – CarbonPlan Verra recently acknowledged the existence of millions of excess credits issued to the Kariba REDD+ project. Rather than resolving the issue, Verra’s proposed solution exposes a fundamental structural ...

Verra recently announced that more than half of the credits from the Kariba REDD+ project don’t represent real climate benefits. Our new commentary explains why carbon market participants should treat Verra’s proposed solution to excess crediting with skepticism.

Wildfire Update: The Rattlesnake and Lynx Mountain Fires will likely trigger losses from California’s buffer pool, now that they’ve burned over 12,000 acres of a forest enrolled in its offset program. 🍁

When offset projects burn, they affect the long-term sustainability of California’s cap-and-trade program, which partly depends on forest offsets to meet its climate goals. We track the impact of fire on California’s offset program in order to make these risks more transparent to the public. (3/3)

Much of eastern Washington is under a Red Flag Warning, which means hot and dry conditions that are conducive for rapid fire growth. This same project has burned multiple times over the past five years, including major fires in 2015, 2019, 2020, and 2021. (2/3)

Map showing wildfire in the the ACR255 forest offset project.

The Rattlesnake and Lynx Mountain Fires in eastern Washington have burned more than 3,000 acres of the Colville forest offset project. 🍁🧪(1/3)

carbonplan.org/research/for...

California’s forest offset program has a reporting problem – CarbonPlan Five years later, we still don’t know the carbon consequences of the 2020 Lionshead Fire.

Five years ago, the Lionshead Fire burned through one of California’s forest offset projects in central Oregon. Despite strict reporting requirements, we’re still waiting for an update about the project and the millions of carbon credits that were likely lost to the fire.

Scaling enhanced weathering in limed fields – CarbonPlan Both agricultural liming and enhanced weathering spread crushed rocks on fields and have the potential to remove carbon from the atmosphere. We explore how modifying liming for carbon removal works — ...

Agricultural liming helped create the infrastructure that enhanced weathering needs to scale up, but it also makes some enhanced weathering projects harder to support in the carbon market. We show why this tension exists and discuss some paths forward in our latest article.

California has plenty of policy priorities that desperately need funding — think firefighting or energy affordability. Lawmakers can unlock a big pool of money for things that actually benefit Californians and the climate. It’s time to retire offsets for good. (7/7)