Berkeley Carbon Trading Project

The Berkeley Carbon Trading Project is dedicated to ensuring that carbon markets, in their various forms, support deep and equitable decarbonization.  

In this brief moment when avoiding the worst impacts of climate change is still within reach, a surge of corporate climate commitments and quickly evolving state, national, and international climate policies is being undermined by the heavy use of carbon offsets. Carbon offsets allow businesses to claim a lower carbon footprint by paying someone else to reduce emissions. Research performed by us and others has found that most offset credits traded on the market today represent far less than their claimed benefits. This failure squanders funds, good will, and precious time when real decarbonization could not be more urgent. 

Our interdisciplinary research and engagement program is focused on:

1. Monitoring and improving carbon market integrity through rigorous research and effective engagement
2. Reforming climate finance with effective alternatives
3. Bringing transparency and accountability to carbon markets  

New at Berkeley Carbon

March 20, 2026: Ando Rabearisoa, Postdoctoral Scholar at Berkeley Carbon, is featured in a Nature Careers Q&A — I paused my PhD for 11 years to help save Madagascar’s seas: Marine scientist Ando Rabearisoa creates sustainable, community-managed fisheries, DOI: 10.1038/d41586-026-00401-6 

January 23, 2026: New research article published in Carbon Management — Quantifying the additionality of cookstove carbon projects, Annelise Gill-Wiehl, Marie Hogan, Barbara K. Haya. (2026). Carbon Management, DOI: 10.1080/17583004.2026.2618350

January 2025: New version of our offsets database released with data through the end of the year

December 5, 2025: New commentary published in Nature Climate Change: UNFCCC Carbon Trading Could Undermine Global Climate Action by Stephen Lezak, Sharaban T. Zaman, Injy Johnstone, and Barbara K. Haya, also available at this share link

Monitoring and improving carbon market integrity through rigorous research and policy engagement

Berkeley Carbon’s central role is performing authoritative research on the quality and effectiveness of the evolving carbon market. Our comprehensive quality assessments go sector-by-sector, examining the effectiveness of current carbon crediting programs, offering recommendations for aligning programs with the latest science and multiple goals, and exploring when the limitations of the carbon market structure means alternative programs are needed.

⇒ See our work on cookstoves credit quality

⇒ See our work on avoided deforestation (REDD+) credit quality

⇒ See our research on improved forest management credit quality on our publications page 

⇒ See our Policy Briefs, Op-Eds, Public Comments, and Presentations

Reforming climate finance with effective alternatives

Berkeley Carbon is developing an alternative framework to the carbon market: a “contributions” approach. This focuses private climate finance on where climate mitigation funding is most needed and can make the biggest difference, taking many factors into account rather than just carbon.

⇒ COMMENTARY: Funding forests’ climate potential without carbon offsets

Bringing transparency and accountability to carbon markets

Lack of transparency insulates the carbon market from criticism and mutes incentives to seek quality credits. Berkeley Carbon creates transparency through our work with policymakers on transparency mandates, and through:

⇒ Our Voluntary Registry Offsets Database, a public database of voluntary market projects and credits

⇒ Our Repository of Articles on Offset Quality

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