In this episode, your intrepid hosts reconvene ENERGY CRISIS CORNER where the landscape is hellish but the feeling between energy ministers is decidedly warm and fuzzy following their get together and commitment to a host of sensible things (at the time of recording, AEMO had not yet suspended the NEM wholesale spot market for the first time ever, *wowsers*). After Tennant laments a bad week for CBAM enthusiasts with stalled progress of legislation in the EU Parliament, we dive into the paper for this week which was….

The Voluntary Carbon Markets Initiative (VCMI) draft Claims Code of Practice!

Want to know whether that carbon neutral branded soap in the supermarket gets a gold, silver or bronze for their emissions reduction and offsetting efforts? Tune in to hear what your hosts award this claims code (mithril, aluminium and chocolate coin level recognition is also in the mix). Special shout out to one of our listeners, Joe Karten at Built, for suggesting we tackle this paper.

If you feel strongly about this *draft* claims code then don’t stop at podcast commentary, you can make submissions to VCMI until 12 August here.

Here is the initiative from the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market that will deal with the issues Frankie was really looking for in the claims code, due to be released in Q4 2022. And there is so much more to say. Will the podcast get a regular Carbon Accounting Chronicles segment we hear you ask? Only time will tell!

One More Thing

• Tennant’s One More Thing is an encore with the Victorian Gas Substitution Roadmap - never more timely, though it seems we may have to wait until after Victoria’s state election in November to get all the juicy detail.
• Frankie’s One More Thing was a sneaky twofer with the EU Parliament voting in support of zero emissions cars and light utility vehicles by 2035, and the leader of the German social democrats floating some bold ideas to keep fuel costs down - autobahn speed limit anyone?
• Luke’s One More Thing is ClimateWorks’ excellent, locally produced complement to the VCMI claims code, Corporate climate action for 1.5 degrees: Best practice for Australian company net zero commitments

Please keep tweeting your thoughts and suggestions for new papers to us at  @LukeMenzel @TennantReed and  @FrankieMuskovic.

Our Next Paper

Want to read along with the team? On our next episode we'll be chatting about the International Renewable Energy Agency's fascinating  technology review of hydrogen carriers, which focuses on how we transport those promising but pesky hydrogen molecules around.