The issue with carbon markets is trust, and the only way to solve it is a robust social licence to operate through FPIC which is context driven and rooted in the voices of the vulnerable, and definitely not a tick box check. And it needs to be renewed at intervals. But it can be solved through trained critical social scientists who speak the languages of the community and thinking intersectionally are deployed, and use a range of approaches to understand needs and develop trust.

The problem with the offset market is the way they treat FPIC, as almost a headache to be outsourced to an NGO partner. These are vulnerable people with rich histories of hundreds of years. Carbon is stapled with water and biodiversity as President Tharman quipped, yet community is the wrapper of the bundle.

No AI bluster will help here, as there future of the planet is high touch rather than high technology purely not discounting tech based credits and power of MRV in the traceability equation. It’s time to be creative with FPIC, and solving for trust through intellectual rigor is the way to go, in case nature based credits need to scale.