The Africa Carbon Markets Initiative (ACMI) was launched at COP27 in Egypt, by a coalition of organisations focused on high integrity climate impact, clean energy, and sustainable development, to accelerate the growth of Africa’s voluntary carbon markets.
The initiative was launched by the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP), Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) with support from the UN Climate Change High-Level Champions. It is led by a 13-person steering committee of African leaders and carbon market experts.
ACMI aims to help shape and harness the potential for carbon markets in Africa. Its focus is to capture more of Africa’s potential in carbon markets by addressing the challenges to voluntary carbon market growth and building the foundations for a thriving voluntary carbon market ecosystem in Africa by 2030.
This initiative will focus not only on driving decarbonization activities but also on driving economic development by supporting energy access, scaling the clean energy transition, protecting forests, improving agriculture, and creating new income sources.
ACMI aims to support African governments, communities, project developers and other stakeholders to significantly scale the supply and demand of high integrity African carbon credits, to supplement direct decarbonisation and deliver real climate action while creating millions of jobs and supporting energy access, biodiversity, livelihoods and more.
For this purpose, ACMI is developing a roadmap of action programs that could be implemented over the coming years, covering every part of the VCM ecosystem including on the ground project developers and communities, buyers, intermediaries, financiers, technical assistance providers, validation/verification bodies, registry agencies and governments. Integrity is central to the mission of ACMI.
Voluntary carbon credit integrity will only matter more as the market matures and standards are refined and should thus be prioritised at all stages of the value chain. ACMI will work with leading bodies such as the The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) and the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative to establish transparency and benefits-sharing standards for both sellers and buyers ensuring that as VCMs scale in Africa, they scale with projects that drive meaningful climate and development impact.
