Oka updates

My colleague Stewart Duncan and I recently returned from a series of on-site project visits in Kenya, Rwanda, and South Africa (my reflections on which you can read in full here).

For both of us, the trip brought home the ‘why’. Seeing, firsthand, the scale and sophistication of manufacturing operations — witnessing the community impacts of clean cookstoves and better water filtration — highlighted a side of carbon markets and climate finance that is all-too easy to overlook. Particularly if your daily engagement starts and ends in an office, possibly wrangling over fNRB rates.

Some carbon-market debates are put into perspective after seeing smoke billow out of a 6×6-foot room that houses a family of five, their children inhaling the fumes — all the while knowing a clean cookstove, which costs less than a family meal for my own team of five, could make a radical difference to theirs.

Yes, the technicalities matter, but endless prevarication — coupled with a historic refusal to acknowledge failure — comes at a serious real-world cost: not just environmental but also humanitarian and economic. Visiting the projects reinforced what’s at stake. We need to remember why climate finance and carbon markets exist, and why we have to make them work.

Product updates

Central to Oka’s purpose is an ambition to de-risk climate finance in the places where it has the most impact and the highest hurdles. That ambition has allowed us to continuously evolve and innovate, responding (and, in the case of CORSIA, anticipating) new and growing sources of demand for insurance. Today, with a product suite that accounts for every type of carbon project and financing avenue, we are exploring additional opportunities to deploy our expertise and capacity in the clean energy and renewables industry. In response to interest, we have started engaging with a number of culturally aligned MGAs and will keep our investors informed as conversations progress.

Carbon market updates

Government support

Nigeria finalised a carbon-market regulatory framework targeting up to $2.5 billion in carbon-credit investments by 2030 (Carbon Pulse). Meanwhile, emerging reports suggest the EU is considering using international carbon credits to meet its climate targets, potentially expanding eligible supply and integration with Article 6 mechanisms (Reuters).

Mandatory schemes

The UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) approved a “historic deal” to cut global shipping emissions (UN News), with a carbon pricing mechanism scheduled to take effect in 2028. Project developers are sounding the alarm on an imminent CORSIA credit supply crunch (GreenAir News), with airlines urged to “lock in” credits before prices surge (Carbon Pulse).

Record removal deals

Underscoring corporate demand for durable carbon removals, April witnessed some of the market’s largest ever multi-year offtake agreements. Microsoft signed a 15-year, 6.75 MtCO2 BECCS deal with AtmosClear (Reuters) and a 12-year, 3.7 MtCO2 pulp mill deal with CO280 (TechCrunch). Meta announced a 10-year agreement with EFM for 676,000 nature-based credits (CarbonCredits.com).

Market standardisation

The Voluntary Carbon Markets Initiative formally endorsed the corporate use of carbon credits to offset Scope 3 emissions, publishing new guidance under the Scope 3 Action Code of Practice (VCMI). Further closing the gap between voluntary and compliant, the UK and France each rolled out initiatives aimed at boosting standards and thus corporate adoption: the UK with a consultation on integrity rules (CarbonCredits.com), and France, a ‘Carbon Credit Charter’ (ESG Today).

Upcoming events

ClimateImpact Flagship Summit, Wednesday May 7th, London: I’ll be joining a roster of panelists for the discussion ‘Funding the Future: The Climate Capital Ecosystem’, hosted by the FT’s Simon Mundy.

**Carbon Unbound, Wednesday May 21st, New York**: Our SVP Sales, Zachary Kane, will be speaking on the panel ‘Derisking offtake agreements through legal, insurance, and financial frameworks’ at Carbon Unbound on May 21st.

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