ADB meets with international standard setters to discuss legal innovations to scale up climate action at United Nations Vienna

On 12 July, General Counsel Thomas Clark addressed UN member states, representatives from international organizations and international legal community at the UNCITRAL Colloquium on Climate Change and the Law of International Trade which explored the private international law aspects of climate change. He highlighted the need to strengthen legal and regulatory frameworks to catalyze private sector financing to scale up climate investments. In particular, he noted the lack of legal certainty in the voluntary carbon market (VCM) inhibiting its growth potential. On 11 July, OGC’s Christina U. Pak and Daniele Quaggiotto participated in a workshop on the legal nature of verified carbon credits (VCCs) organized by UNIDROIT and the World Bank alongside the UNCITRAL Colloquium. The workshop discussed the urgency for international legal standards setters to define the legal nature of VCCs to achieve certainty around their ownership and transferability thus scaling up VCM.