Options to use existing international offset programs in a domestic context

Over the past 25 years, significant experience on offsetting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has been built up through the development, implementation, and improvement of various international and domestic offset programs. Currently a number of countries, regions, and sectors are contemplating designing their own domestic offset programs. Considering if and how existing international offset programs can be used is important in this exercise. This technical note is part of the partnership for market readiness (PMR) technical work program. Its objective is to support PMR country participants currently planning and or designing domestic offset programs to identify how existing international offset programs can be best leveraged to develop domestic offset arrangements that suit their national circumstance. This can be at different levels of dependency, ranging from full reliance on international programs to fully independent domestic programs, and everything in between. Chapter one gives introduction. Chapter two first presents the scope of the note and introduces definitions of key words. It then reviews existing international offset programs and add-on labels to identify the common elements across the programs and highlight the different approaches followed. Chapter three discusses how the approaches used in international offset programs and presented in chapter two can be combined in practice when designing a domestic offset program. Chapter four assesses the institutional, regulatory, technical, and economic implications of implementing these scenarios. Chapter five brings the previous chapters together, summarizing the key questions that will help policy maker’s best leverage the existing international experience when planning and or designing a domestic offset program.