Insights on Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification in Carbon Pricing

Robust MRV is the foundation on which every carbon pricing instrument rests. A price applied to inaccurate or unverified emissions data cannot deliver the abatement it is designed to produce. 

This report sets out how MRV works across common forms of carbon pricing, compliance emissions trading systems, carbon taxes, and offset crediting mechanisms, and what governments designing a domestic compliance market should take into account from international experience. The report draws on desk research into primary policy and regulation and academic literature, complemented by expert interviews, and on four case studies covering Quebec, Alberta, China, and the European Union. The case studies explore how each jurisdiction implements the steps of MRV, alongside their various challenges and approaches to non-compliance and distributional concerns. 

The report also considers who bears the costs of compliance and who can convert compliance into advantage. The systems reviewed have not yet put gender equality and social inclusion or just transition principles into practice in their governance arrangements, and the benefits of MRV remain unevenly accessible to smaller, less-resourced entities. 

Findings and recommendations are directed at policy-makers building MRV systems that are technically robust, transparent, adaptable, and socially just.