GCMU Governing Council
Why is a Governing Council needed?
The Global Carbon Market Utility Governing Council, unencumbered from financial incentives, will oversee the GCMU’s operations to ensure that transactions result in legitimate climate impact. The Governing Council’s mission includes setting the criteria to make complex policy decisions needed to establish a market at scale.
What are some examples of the types of decisions the Council will undertake?
The Governing Council will set guidelines for evaluating tradeoffs in response to an evolving market, a changing climate, and society’s priorities. It will supervise the GCMU and GCMU intermediaries to ensure the quality and transparency necessary to earn broad public confidence and support.
In consultation with relevant experts and market participants, some other activities of the Governing Council may include:
Policy evaluation
The Governing Council will evaluate policy tradeoffs, such as incentivizing immediate action vs. ensuring long-term impact. These types of decisions must be public and driven by the goal of improving climate outcomes, and are separate from the operational, for-profit functions of the GCMU.
Managing for impact
The Governing Council’s decision-making will be driven by a mission to increase our overall capacity to address climate change. The rules will be changed between vintages, optimized to continually increase positive climate impact.
Annual updates
The Governing Council will set annually updated rules. Vintage rules will include an equivalence ratio to compare project types and markdowns or discounts to manage measurement uncertainty.
Public consultation
A period of consultation with relevant regulators, stakeholders, and a public review will inform the Council’s finalization of vintage rules.
How will the Governing Council gain public trust?
The Governing Council will be philanthropically funded to preserve its independence. It will collaborate with scientists and other technical experts to ensure that the climate impact reports it produces are trustworthy and accurate.