2️⃣The problem

Carbon offset initiatives proliferate but lack a coherent standard, confuse consumers and hold back commoditization as an investable asset. To fight climate change, government taxation and consumer awareness are not enough. We need a paradigm shift in financial markets and industry to rapidly incentivize emission-reducing innovation, the use of low emission fuels and carbon sinks such as reforestation on a huge scale. Cryptocurrencies have brought about tremendous change in finance – the way we think about money, invest and borrow. This was made possible by the market. Over the last decade, the price of Bitcoin has gone from $1 to $50,000, making cryptographic money arguably the hottest topic on earth and forcing reluctant governmental and corporate players to pay attention. Now those of us fortunate enough to have benefited from this revolution can help the planet by applying the same market mechanism to climate change, by making carbon emissions an investable and tradeable instrument on DeFi and push up the price.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a price level of $135–5500 in 2030 and $245–13000 per ton CO2 in 2050 would be needed to drive carbon emissions to stay below the 1.5°C limit (2) – right now it is between $10 and $100. This unnecessarily incentivizes a "dirty status quo" and on the other hand presents the next enormous financial opportunity for investment return. By introducing yield farming to carbon markets, short-term trading of mitigation outcomes will be replaced by long-term staking and “HODLing”; incentivizing the origination of new offset projects.