COP18 (29/11/2012) – Adrian Rimmer, Chief Executive Officer at The Gold Standard Foundation, explains that there is still a desire for market-based approaches to tackling climate change, as a way of promoting low carbon growth and achieving development goals in developing countries.

He explains that many of the current challenges to market mechanisms are structural problems, often caused by the global financial crisis. He argues that in recession carbon markets can still work very effectively, and calls on countries to raise their ambition to meet their targets for emissions reductions under the Kyoto Protocol.

He describes how deforestation is a significant driver of climate change, and explains how market-based approaches could help to provide finance for forest conservation and less carbon intensive agricultural practices. He accepts that there have been problems with market interventions into issues of land use, but explains that his organisation aims to define best practice, and create trust in carbon mechanisms, working with a number of different stakeholders.