Climate protection projects in the Global South

The Foundation Development and Climate Alliance offers guidance in selecting beneficial projects. This has the following benefits:

• High standards – tested for quality

The climate protection certificates accepted by the Development and Climate Alliance comply with high international standards. A list of criteria (available in German) defines the standards and processes approved by the Alliance to ensure optimum transparency.

• Sustainability goals – at least two

All of the climate protection projects in countries of the Global South listed by the Alliance support not only Goal 13 (climate action), but also at least one other of the global goals for sustainable development laid out by Agenda 2030: These 17 goals include, for instance, access to affordable and clean energy, clean water and sanitation, good health and well-being, and the goal to end every form of poverty everywhere. This means that your offsets make a concrete contribution with an immediate impact- for the protection of the climate and for people in the countries of the Global South.

• Climate protection projects in the Global South – promotion of green innovations

As a supporter of the Development and Climate Alliance, you help to ensure that climate protection technologies – adapted to the local needs and circumstances in the partner countries – can be developed, promoted and implemented by supporting climate protection projects in the Global South. The bandwidth ranges from solutions on the household level, like building energy-efficient cook stoves or micro-biogas digesters, all the way to larger-scale projects with biomass, solar or geothermal power plants.

The result:

You support sustainable prospects for the future of the Global South.

You protect the world´s climate.

You acquire quality-tested climate certificates which prove that you compensate for your remaining CO₂ emissions

Maintaining high standards

In order to ensure the high quality of climate protection projects in countries of the Global South or of the emission certificates, projects must fulfil general quality criteria and demonstrate positive development impacts (SDGs).

These criteria particularly include:

additionality
permanence
sound calculation
monitoring and verification of emissions
avoidance of carbon leakage
transparency
guaranteeing internationally recognised environmental and social standards
avoiding double counting
proof of additional development impacts

As proof of the criteria, we recommend the following standards, or combinations of standards, for the purchase of emission certificates. These verify the projects´ effects on the climate as well as on developments.

Photo credit: GIZ/Kopp