Ripple Commits $100m to Modernize Carbon Markets and Accelerate Carbon Removal to Help Address Climate Change

Key takeaways:

• Ripple has announced that it is committing $100 million to invest in carbon markets.
• The funds will be directed towards modernizing and scaling carbon markets as well as accelerating the process of carbon removal from the atmosphere.
• Blockchain and crypto can create scalable, transparent, traceable, and verifiable carbon markets.

The team at Ripple has announced through Twitter that the company intends to commit $100 million to invest in carbon markets. The funds will be geared towards modernizing and scaling carbon markets as well as accelerating ‘the supply of new, permanent, high-quality carbon removal.’

Today, we’re committing $100M to invest in carbon markets.♻️

We’re excited to accelerate progress toward global climate goals by investing in high-quality, scalable carbon removal & deploying blockchain to power more transparent & dynamic carbon markets.https://t.co/MdcpOh5fco

— Ripple (@Ripple) May 19, 2022

Blockchain and Crypto Can Play a Catalytic Role in Modernizing Carbon Markets

With the $100 million commitment, Ripple will be building on its globally known sustainability efforts. The investment aims to evolve the global carbon markets to accommodate the surging global supply and demand of the industry while simultaneously achieving agreed-upon climate goals.

The CEO of Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse, reiterated that blockchain and crypto could catalyze the process of modernizing the global carbon markets and eventually assist in meeting climate goals. He said:

While reducing emissions and transitioning to a low-carbon future are paramount, carbon markets are important for meeting climate goals.

Blockchain and crypto can play a catalytic role in allowing carbon markets to reach their full potential bringing more liquidity and traceability to a fragmented, complex market.

As they stand today, carbon markets struggle to keep up with exploding demand for higher-quality, thus creating bottlenecks. According to the team at Ripple, crypto and blockchain can unshackle the carbon markets ‘by accommodating new forms of value that are more scalable, transparent, traceable and verifiable.’

The team stated that ‘individual farmers, networks of farms, companies or NGOs, suppliers can take advantage of blockchain’s tokenization capabilities and open, decentralized governance to more easily originate and validate new products and bring them to market’.

Tokenization of Carbon Credits Through NFTs Can Eliminate the Potential For Fraud

Tokenization can thus create more value for carbon market buyers and sellers and create more accurate prices. Furthermore, NFT carbon credits can be a quick way to verify and certify carbon credits, thus reducing instances of fraud.

Monica Long, General Manager of RippleX at Ripple, further elaborated on this fact as follows:

Tokenizing carbon credits can play a vital role in scaling carbon markets to meet growing demand while ensuring existing markets’ credibility, integrity, and transparency. Several carbon removal projects and fintechs are already building on the XRPL to bring new climate solutions to market.

By bringing blockchain to global climate initiatives, the industry can more quickly verify and certify NFT carbon credits, eliminate the potential for fraud, and even guarantee the offset is actually removing carbon for the long term.