The World Bank has requested Singapore to anchor an international effort that aims to make the international trade in carbon credits more transparent and trustworthy. Given its world-class market and trading infrastructure, good governance, and highly skilled workforce, the republic is an ideal place to host such an initiative, stated the World Bank’s spokesperson. Singapore has accepted the invitation to work closely with the World Bank on the Climate Warehouse initiative, which aims to connect the various carbon credit registries in the world.
Carbon credit registries track offset projects that are sources of carbon credits, such as a forest protection project, and issue credits for each unit of emission reduction or removal that is verified and certified. However, transactions happening outside each registry, which are currently operated by various governments or non-state actors, including international organizations, non-profit groups, or private firms, currently cannot be captured. This could raise issues, such as the double issuance of the same credit in multiple registries. Many of these systems also differ in governance rules and technology systems, ranging from basic spreadsheets to sophisticated registries, to store information on climate activities and assets, said a spokesman for the World Bank. But this is something Climate Warehouse aims to resolve.
The effort is now in the third phase of testing, which will last until August this year.
