The Climate Q&A…with Winrock International climate leaders

This year marked the 15th annual convening of Climate Week NYC, an event held alongside the U.N. General Assembly in New York City that brings together leaders from across sectors to champion inclusive climate action. Three common and interconnected threads at this year’s event were: 1) The urgency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for both current and future climates;  2) Equitably mobilizing capital and the role of businesses to design and implement emissions reduction and adaption plans; and 3) The role of agricultural and natural ecosystems to absorb emissions and simultaneously play a critical part to adapt to climate change. 

Leaders from an array of Winrock International programs joined other global climate innovators, policy advisors, strategists and business leaders at the event to help address the climate crisis through sharing knowledge, exploring new approaches, championing existing approaches and building coalitions and support. Winrock provided leadership and expertise, offering insights ranging from inclusive carbon markets and crediting to sustainable agriculture, net zero services and strategy, and ecosystem services.  

We asked some of the Winrock leaders who attended Climate Week NYC to answer a few questions and provide some takeaways from their participation.

How can carbon markets help make forests more resilient to the impacts of climate change?   

Mary Grady, executive director of ACR at Winrock International: We co-hosted a panel with Weyerhaeuser, the largest private landowner in the U.S. (and possibly the world), to explore the role that natural climate solutions can play in promoting resilience.  

Along with The Nature Conservancy and L&C Carbon, we discussed how carbon finance, such as Improved Forest Management projects, can offer landowners a wide range of ways to improve forest health while also keeping forests as forests. For example, sales of carbon credits have helped to pay for forest thinning and fuel breaks, which can reduce the risk of wildfire. In this way, carbon projects can reduce and remove CO2 emissions from the atmosphere while also making forests more resilient to the impacts of climate change that are already here.

—Mary Grady is president and CEO of Environmental Resources Trust, a wholly owned nonprofit subsidiary of Winrock. She has been active in environmental markets for over 30 years, including 16 years at Winrock. She is executive director of the Secretariat for the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART), a jurisdictional REDD+ crediting program launched in 2018, as well as executive director of ACR, responsible for the strategic leadership and its respected team of technical and policy experts in compliance markets, including the California Cap-and-Trade market and the International Civil Aviation Organization’s Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), as well as the voluntary carbon market. 

What new private sector climate-related trends emerged during Climate Week NYC and how are they relevant to Winrock? 

Steve Brunn, senior director of private sector engagement, Corporate Affairs & Strategy: While companies remain focused on mitigating emissions, there is an increased effort to broaden the lens to include a more holistic approach to nature, preserving and resourcing ecosystems and understanding supply chain impacts on nature. This trend is being driven by legislation like the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the EU’s regulation on deforestation-free products. The movement is also supported by initiatives like the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures and the Science Based Targets Network, which is intended to play a similar role for nature, that is already playing for emissions.   

Similarly, while companies continue to emphasize regenerative agriculture as a priority for reducing emissions, improving ecosystem impacts and building farmer resilience and incomes, there is a growing focus on agroecology as a framework for ensuring that regenerative agriculture not only addresses farm-level practices and impacts, but also considers the broader socio-economic, cultural and ecological context. While agroecology has been an approach in NGO-led sustainable development efforts, the private sector is just beginning to learn how to integrate agroecology into their existing and future efforts. This integration of agroecology can mitigate risks and improve the potential impact of regenerative ag efforts, by ensuring that local communities are engaged as equal partners and that solutions address systemic barriers and are aligned with farmer needs and capabilities.   

—Steve Brunn works across Winrock, integrating private sector partnerships into proposals and projects to maximize the scale and sustainability of Winrock’s impact. He previously worked as director of responsible sourcing at Target, where he oversaw human rights, labor rights and environmental sustainability for one of the world’s largest global supply chains. 

Patricia McCall, chief corporate affairs & strategy officer, Corporate Affairs & Strategy: Winrock participated in several private sector focused events, highlighting the need for increased action by the business community. One such event, the roundtable led by the newly formed Climate Action Coalition, focused specifically on the role non-state entities have in partnering with countries to achieve further Nationally Determined Contributions while targeting near term action.  

Participants included leading multinationals, NGOs, and Catherine McKenna, founder and CEO of Climate and Nature Solutions. Challenges cited include a hesitancy in the business community to lead out front and lack of clear regulatory frameworks that require mandatory action. There is a greater role that businesses can play in supporting legislation that supports government action on NDCs, and the Coalition called on partners to actively engage with countries during the NDC commitment process, and to actively voice support as well as to provide capital investment.  

—Patricia McCall leads Winrock’s efforts to develop impact investment programs, private sector engagement, Net Zero Climate Services and Winrock’s development outreach and relationships with philanthropic donors.

How can Jurisdictional REDD+ programs scale up conservation and unlock finance? What is the JREDD Technical Assistance Partnership and how is Winrock involved?  

Pedro Piffer, senior technical lead, Ecosystem Services: Tropical forest conservation is a key nature-based solution for mitigating the anthropogenic impacts on global climate and reducing deforestation at a drastic pace is urgent for humanity to reach our sustainable development goals. Jurisdictional REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) programs play an essential role in scaling up the protection of forested ecosystems through market-based mechanisms. While there is considerable interest from global north nations and private sector companies in financing forest conservation, this has not yet materialized in reducing tropical deforestation at a global scale. Tropical forest countries face significant obstacles in meeting the rapidly evolving technical requirements for high-quality carbon credits, jeopardizing the delivery of billions of dollars in results-based finance crucial for climate action. To truly protect these vital ecosystems, tropical forest countries must be able to access market-based mechanisms to halt deforestation and protect their natural resources. 

In this context, JTAP (Jurisdictional REDD+ Technical Assistance Partnership) is a pioneer initiative between five global REDD+ leaders. These include Conservation International; Climate Law & Policy; Environmental Defense Fund; Wildlife Conservation Society; and Winrock International’s Ecosystem Services unit. Winrock is partnering with these other influential organizations with the goal of empowering tropical forest jurisdictions to implement high-integrity JREDD+ programs and access financing via the issuance of carbon credits resulting from their conservation efforts. These jurisdictions include specific geographies — such as states, provinces, or countries — within the tropics that are committed to implementing large-scale programs to reduce deforestation and forest degradation. These jurisdictions are typically rich in tropical forests, which are critical for biodiversity, carbon storage, and climate regulation. JTAP aims at filling a critical gap in assistance to these jurisdictions, ensuring that they meet their forest and climate protection goals. This work is paramount to support reducing tropical deforestation at global scale, bringing financing to protect these important ecosystems while also conserving biodiversity and ensuring equitable participation and benefits for Indigenous and local community partners.    

Winrock, through the Ecosystem Services unit, has been instrumental in the development of JTAP working alongside our partners in different fronts of its inception, including governance, structure and fundraising. Moreover, Winrock serves as the lead JTAP institution for monitoring, reporting and verification and carbon accounting solutions.  

—Pedro Piffer is an environmental scientist with broad expertise in tropical forest conservation, supporting governments to design and implement their jurisdictional REDD+ programs. He also has years of experience in the private sector in Brazil, working with environmental permitting processes for a wide range of infrastructure projects, including activities with high environmental and social risk from remote areas in the Amazon to highly altered landscapes in southeastern Brazil.

How can Jurisdictional REDD+ crediting programs like the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) enable forest countries to access vital carbon finance and serve as a cornerstone for equitable and inclusive climate action? 

Christina Magerkurth, managing director, Architecture for REDD+ Transactions: During New York Climate Week, we were honored to be included in numerous panels discussing this very topic. In fact, ART received our first Indigenous-led Jurisdictional REDD+ (JREDD+) program submission from the government of Peru and a coalition of three Indigenous organizations during Climate Week, which is an exciting milestone. 

JREDD+ programs are most successful and achieve the greatest ambition when all stakeholders are involved throughout the design and implementation process. While benefit-sharing agreements are important, stakeholders should be partners in the journey and not only beneficiaries at the end. ART establishes safeguards that must be met to ensure that verified results were obtained through appropriate processes.  

ART also permits governments to partner with recognized Indigenous territories, such as the example in Peru, to submit jurisdictional programs comprised of only Indigenous territories. This enables Indigenous Peoples to directly participate in the processes if they choose to do so, permitting market access for groups who have historically been the best stewards of the forest.  

For forests to deliver their massive potential for climate impact, billions of dollars of additional annual investment must be mobilized from all sources, including the private sector. Previous investments in REDD+ at scale were not designed to meet market requirements for large-scale private sector financing, such as the appropriate standardization so that REDD+ credits could be used in carbon markets, are comparable among jurisdictions, and are fungible with emission reductions and removals from other sectors. ART created a crediting program that is fully aligned with requirements in the Paris Agreement and incorporates market elements that aim to unlock private sector capital at scale. 

By certifying their emission reductions and removals through ART, jurisdictions can access numerous pathways to monetize their results. Emission reduction and removals credits issued by ART, called TREES credits, can be purchased and used by organizations as part of their voluntary climate plans and net zero commitments. TREES Credits can also be approved for use in regulated carbon markets. For example, ART has been approved by the International Civil Aviation Organization to supply credits for airlines to meet their CORSIA obligations. Jurisdictions may also receive results-based payments for their accomplishments or TREES credits can be transferred between countries to meet Paris Agreement Nationally Determined Contributions and raise ambition. 

—Christina Magerkurth has 20 years of experience in the environmental field including broad carbon market and climate change experience in the areas of carbon offset verification, project development and GHG reporting. As ART’s managing director, she supports the ART executive director and oversees all aspects of the program to ensure the efficient and effective operation of the ART team, including internal processes, program operations, communications, stakeholder engagement and strategic positioning of the ART program.

Focusing on win-win solutions to prevent and prepare for climate change in the agriculture sector was front-and-center at Climate Week: How can food systems play a role? How can food companies and agribusinesses benefit from interventions to address the climate crisis?   

Colin Quinn, director of climate & environment, Corporate Affairs & Strategy: The role of food systems in addressing climate change was, indeed, front of mind at this year’s Climate Week NYC. Agriculture, forestry, and land use contribute to about a quarter of global emissions, and climate smart practices can help reduce this. Agriculture systems also must adapt to feed the world as temperatures increase and extreme weather events, including droughts and floods, make it more challenging to grow food.  

Food companies can play a critical role to equitably reduce GHG emissions, help communities access finance and adapt to climate change, and simultaneously increase their bottom lines. For example, at the Regen House, a venue at Climate Week NYC focused on regenerative food systems, Nespresso, the coffee company, discussed its efforts to source over 70% of coffee through regenerative practices. This not only addresses climate change, helps improve community access to finance and has a positive impact on natural systems, but can also help improve Nespresso’s bottom line as they are seen as embracing values their customers care about.  

This dialogue, along with many other formal and informal events, discussion, and brainstorming sessions, inspired continued transformative action, and validated Winrock’s approaches as we lead with market driven climate smart agriculture solutions in our international food systems programs, and work closely with companies such as Nestlé to reduce emissions in their value chains.  

—Colin Quinn has nearly two decades of experience working in the U.S. and internationally in ecological research and climate change. He values working with, building, and collaborating with diverse teams to identify creative solutions to challenging problems, linking science to action and learning from others.