Assertion Supported
Chay: Soil carbon protocols broadly lack measurement, permanence, and additionality
“We did a really interesting review of all of the protocols, so all of the crediting rules that are currently used to issue credits to soil carbon in collaboration with Jane Zelikova, and basically, you know, you have these PDF documents that, maybe you have mu…”
Insight
Chay: Treating uncalibrated models like sampled soil creates a race to the bottom
“If you're in a market and everything looks like a ton, so I could take any of these approaches and get tons that I can sell, and they look the same in the market you really result in a race to the bottom. It's way easier to not sample anything and get some ton…”
Assertion Supported
Chay: California depleted its 100-year forest carbon wildfire buffer in 10 years
“Yeah, it's not all the way gone, but we've, we have used up all of the credits that were meant to protect against forest fires for the next 100 years in the first 10 years of the program.”
Assertion Supported
Chay: Protocols issue carbon credits for farming practices started a decade ago
“A lot of these protocols allow people to get credits for practices they started a while ago, like maybe up to 10 years ago.”
Opinion
Chay: Soil carbon additionality screens function primarily as box-checking exercises
“Across the board, you see additionality screens that, in my opinion, look a lot more like box checking exercises and a lot less like, kind of, a rigorous questioning around how these dollars enable new practices.”
Opinion
Chay: Ton-year accounting fails to reflect the physical reality of temporary storage
“There are different methods, but I would lead by saying, I really don't think we should do it. I don't think tenure accounting represents the physicality of temporary carbon storage in a meaningful way.”
Insight
Chay: Robust soil carbon offsets require physical soil sampling at project locations
“Consensus is you really need to sample your soil in the place that you're trying to quantify outcomes if you want to have a robust quantification that you can use for an offset.”
Opinion
Chay: Satellite verification is not yet capable of measuring soil carbon
“There are a couple of people who are doing really interesting work trying to figure out how, ah, satellite-based verification works. Might contribute to MRV in this space. And I would say we're just kind of not there yet. It's hard to see the soil. You can't a…”
Assertion Supported
Chay: Soil offsets guarantee decades of storage against millennial fossil emissions
“Credits in the current market might represent anywhere from 10 years of carbon storage to, you know, maybe a couple of decades or at the very, very high end. In forests, but on soils, a hundred years. So you're talking about a really different time scale than …”
Insight
Chay: Proving additionality for direct air capture is easier than for soil
“Way easier to establish additionality for something like direct air capture than for soils or improved forest management.”
Assertion Supported
Chay: Stripe exclusively purchases carbon removal with at least 1,000-year durability
“Stripe is an example where they basically said, you know, we want to support permanent stuff because we know it's real and we know we need a lot more of it. So we're only going to buy stuff that represents a thousand plus years of durability.”
