The Ipieca-OGCI Natural climate solutions: high carbon stock ecosystems management guidance supports the Paris Agreement goals by setting out the key principles to help energy companies conserve, enhance and restore the high carbon stock ecosystems where they operate.
The guidance builds on the Biodiversity and ecosystem services fundamentals, which Ipieca and IOGP published in 2016, and provides six natural climate solutions (NCS) management practices to ensure that NCS projects deliver positive outcomes to mitigate climate change that also benefit people and nature:
- Build NCS into governance and business processes
- Engage stakeholders and understand their expectations around NCS
- Understand NCS baselines
- Assess NCS dependencies and potential impacts
- Mitigate and manage NCS impacts and identify NCS opportunities
- Select indicators and measure and report NCS performance
The guidance includes 'green' carbon (land-based) and 'blue' carbon (stored in oceanic and coastal ecosystems). It covers carbon dioxide and methane and other greenhouse gases.
What are NCS?
NCS include the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of forests, grasslands, mangroves, agricultural soils, wetlands, and other ecosystems in ways that mitigate climate change and enhance climate resilience. NCS complement energy sector decarbonization and can provide additional emissions reductionsas the world's energy systems are transformed.
Why NCS is important for climate, people and nature
According to the IPCC, NCS are a cost-effective solution that can provide at least a third (~7 GtCO2e) of the emissions reductions needed to achieve the 1.5-2ËC pathway by 2030 while also benefitting nature and communities.
Who is this guidance for?
This guidance is for those working in nature-based solutions, climate change and carbon strategy, biodiversity and ecosystems services, and energy transition units in oil, gas and alternative energy companies.
NCS can have a positive impact onmitigating climate change while also providing additional benefits,including economic growth and diversification, improvement of human health and livelihood and protection of biodiversity and water resources, in line with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.
Quotes from Ipieca Executive Director and OGCI Chair
'This guidance demonstrates Ipieca action on our vision to advance environmental and social performance across the energy transition. It supports the scale up of NCS as a key enabler in companies' climate mitigation strategies in a way that delivers positive outcomes to local communities and ecosystems. It's about how to do NCS and do it well.'
- Brian Sullivan, Ipieca Executive Director
'The Ipieca-OGCI guidance is an important step to help companies embed good management practices for natural climate solutions. Done properly, NCS projects can provide important climate solutions and help support broader decarbonization efforts.'
- Bjørn Otto Sverdrup, OGCI Executive Committee Chair
