We analyze current approaches to carbon accounting for removed carbon sold on carbon markets, focusing on carbon crediting under the framing of a remaining carbon budget, the issue of durability, and approaches to accounting methodologies. We explore the topic of mixing carbon with other problems in developing carbon accounting methodologies and highlight the open policy questions. We conclude with a suggested framework for accounting for carbon removal accounting that simplifies climate action and enables a world with negative carbon emissions.

This document details a conceptual Framework for the Certification of Carbon Sequestration (FCCS). It is based on a system designed to support negative emissions. It provides the minimum requirements for the development of carbon sequestration standards and certificates of carbon sequestration. It allows the certification of standards so that they in turn produce certification of removed carbon that authenticates durability and verifiability. The framework (i) identifies an organizational structure for the certification system, (ii) clarifies the responsibility of participating entities, (iii) provides certificate designs and usages, (iv) details the requirements to develop measurement protocols, (v) provides mechanisms to support a long-term industry, and (vi) outlines a vision towards durable storage.

Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) is essential to meet the Paris Agreement’s commitment to stay below a 1.5 degrees Celsius average temperature increase. To provide critical foundational support to the development, deployment, and scaling of CDR, certification of carbon removal is needed. The international community is developing rules for the functioning of carbon markets. To support that process, we explored open questions on four key themes in the development of standards and certification of carbon removal through an international multi-stakeholder consultation process hosted by the Global Carbon Removal Partnership, Arizona State University, and Conservation International. Categories of stakeholders included standard developing organizations, non-governmental organizations, governments, and academics. Discussions covered 1. the treatment of emission reduction, avoidance,and removal in certification, 2. the role of additionality in carbon removal, 3. the choice of certification instrument for carbon removal, and 4. the treatment of durability in certification. They revealed fundamental differences in viewpoints on how certification should work. We highlight areas of further exploration, concluding that providing transparency on assumptions made at the certification level will be crucial to progress and, eventually, the acceptance and success of carbon removal as a climate solution.

Changing from current unsustainable production, consumption, and disposal patterns will clearly require technological, political and other structural changes, but also individual behavior change. Consumer demand and individuals’ purchasing power exerts pressure on many parts of the production system, including how crops are produced (i.e., organic), products are packaged and labeled (i.e., rBGH-free labels on milk), and even where products are distributed and how they are disposed of. Individual consumer behaviors have even led to political and structural changes overtime, such the consumer boycott of tuna which led to 1990 US legislation creating the "Dolphin Safe" tuna label.

One of the central ways to foster responsible citizenry and promote sustainable production is to harness the capacity of teachers and schools to create change. Educating for conscious consumerism is a critical part of creating changes in production, consumption and disposal systems, but our current education system and approaches often reinforce unsustainable practices that neglect subjective ways of knowing as well as action and change. Research and experience suggests that traditional, information intensive teaching about sustainability alone does not motivate the behavior change a transition to sustainability will require. Utilizing a previously developed framework that identifies four distinct types of knowledge—declarative, procedural, effectiveness and social—we hypothesize that procedural, effectiveness and social knowledge are important predictors of an individual’s participation in sustainable behaviors, while declarative (information) knowledge is not. While the knowledge domain framework has been theoretically detailed by other researchers (Kaiser & Fuhrer, 2003; Frisk & Larson, 2011) and qualitatively assessed through an intensive case study education program (Redman 2013), to date, this is the first quantitative assessment of the relationship between the four domains of knowledge and sustainability-related behaviors.

We tested our hypothesis through an extensive survey of 346 current and future K-12 teachers about sustainable food and waste knowledge and behaviors. The survey results supported our hypothesis that high levels of declarative knowledge alone did not predict increased participation in sustainable behaviors while procedural and social knowledge were statistically significant predictors of sustainable food behaviors and procedural, effectiveness, and social knowledge were all statistically significant predictors of sustainable waste behaviors. Through active incorporation of appropriate forms of procedural, effectiveness, and social knowledge into the K-12 classroom, educators can empower the next generation to make individual changes based on their vision of the future and insist on structural and institutional changes that are essential for a successful transition to sustainability.

Teacher education for sustainability is a central part of integrating sustainability into classrooms and schools. However, educating for sustainability is not limited to increased content knowledge; rather it encompasses different forms of knowledge that embrace the normative, dynamic and action-oriented nature of sustainability. Curriculum for a summer sustainability program had previously been developed based on an interdisciplinary approach which incorporates research and practice from the fields of education pedagogy, sustainability and behavior change.

This article synthesizes the insights provided by K-12 teachers who participated in this program and another teacher who utilized the curriculum during a sustainability unit in her 8th form science class in Phoenix, AZ. Data was collected through surveys and interviews over the course of a year. The key findings indicate that one of the major barriers to moving away from traditional, didactic approaches to education is the importance placed on standardized tests. As long as external forces and incentive structures reinforce methods of lecture and assess, teachers will struggle transitioning to more experiential, real-world methods that enhance a multiplicity of knowledge. One important suggestion made by the teachers was for increased support by universities through pre-service and in-service programs focused on educating for sustainability.