Recap from OST LIVE with Joseph Pallant, Founder and Executive Director of Blockchain For Climate — Putting the Paris Agreement on the Blockchain
Joseph Pallant, founder and executive director of Blockchain for Climate Foundation and founder of CPS Carbon Project Solutions Inc., a pioneering offset-development firm, joined us on OST LIVE. He has been active in the carbon market since 2004, providing project-development expertise and strategic direction across private, public, and NGO endeavors. Pallant was also a recipient of Canada’s 2019 Clean50 award.
The Blockchain for Climate Foundation is working on solving complex climate challenges utilizing blockchain technology. The foundation hopes to operationalize article 6.2 and 6.4 of the Paris Agreement to create a tool to connect the national carbon accounts of all of the countries of the world and to enable collaboration on investment in emission reductions across borders.
The Paris Agreement
The Paris Agreement is an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to work together to reduce global greenhouse-gas emissions. Worldwide, 195 countries have pledged to fight climate change together. The UNFCCC “rule book” is the product of a consensus among those 195 countries. Every country puts out a national carbon account every year. Starting in 2020, each country will fight climate change within its own framework with benchmarks in 2030 and 2050.
Paris Agreement article 6.2 mentions the national achievement of emission reductions and nationally determined contributions. If countries are overachieving on their targets, they may be able to sell some of those emission-reduction outcomes to other countries, creating an international carbon market. This incentivizes national regulation and investment on reducing emissions. Countries would be able to utilize the investment dollars from outside to achieve these outcomes internally, which also promotes social and environmental benefits.
Building a Blockchain for Climate
Blockchain for Climate is currently developing an international tool for connecting all national carbon accounts worldwide. The foundation is working on the initial national deployment — Canada — and placing Canada’s national carbon accounts on the blockchain. This will help support Canada’s leadership position in addressing climate change.
Blockchain for Climate is focused on building on the Ethereum blockchain and building a PoA algorithm for this system. Each country and group such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change would operate at least one node. The vision for Ethereum 2.0 with PoS is that it will have a much lower carbon footprint and energy usage. The ability to have shards, side chains, and state channels would result in lower gas costs. Blockchain for Climate plans to build a fast and secure PoA system that will transact back to the Ethereum mainnet at regular intervals for extra security.
Blockchain for Climate has a team working on understanding the nuances of the Paris Agreement as well as a team focused on building a working group with other national parties. The working group includes responsible parties within the national governments of the world who are working with the UNFCCC and will help provide insight on UX, UI, security, and technical issues.
ERC-998 Composable Non-Fungible Token Standard
Much as CryptoKitties uses ERC-721 NFTs to keep track of native token data (eye color, generation, and the like), Blockchain for Climate plans to use NFTs to track native token data (country of origin, project, and so on) of each emission-reduction token. However, because only one token can be moved at a time, ERC-721 would not be practical.
Blockchain for Climate’s lead developer, Matt Lockyer, is the author of the ERC-998 Composable Non-Fungible Token Standard. ERC-998 is an extension to ERC-721 that will allow non-fungible tokens to own and hold both fungible and non-fungible tokens. In the context of CryptoKitties, this would allow a kitty to own another NFT such as a bag of digital cat food or a fungible token such as an ERC-20. If a single CryptoKitty were to be moved, all of its underlying assets would move along with it. In essence, ERC-998 enables the creation of hierarchies of top-down and bottom-up composable tokens
Coming Up Next on OST LIVE: Zac McClure
Zac McClure, co-founder of TokenTax, will join us on February 6 to discuss the implications of taxes on cryptocurrency. TokenTax reports cryptocurrency capital gains and income taxes and supports over 30 exchanges. McClure will provide a global perspective on crypto tax regulations as well as common practices for U.S. taxpayers. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch live and meet community members in the live chat. You can also find OST LIVE on your favorite podcast app, including: iTunes, Alexa, Spotify, CastBox, Google Play, TuneIn, Stitcher, PodBean, Overcast, and Player FM.
About OST
OST blockchain infrastructure empowers new economies for mainstream businesses and emerging DApps. OST leads development of the OpenST Protocol, a framework for tokenizing businesses. In September 2018 OST introduced the OpenST Mosaic Protocol for running meta-blockchains to scale Ethereum applications to billions of users. OST KIT is a full-stack suite of developer tools, APIs, and SDKs for managing blockchain economies. OST partners reach more than 300 million users. OST has offices in Berlin, New York, Hong Kong, and Pune. OST is backed by leading institutional equity investors including Tencent, Greycroft, Vectr Ventures, and 500 Startups.
