Powerful Risk Management: Insurance Foundations for High-Integrity Carbon Markets

Hear from Natalia Dorfman, CEO & Co-Founder of Kita, as we explore the potential role of insurance in boosting the integrity of the voluntary carbon market.

The voluntary carbon market will likely be an important tool in the transition to net-zero. Even if the world stopped emitting today, enormous amounts of greenhouse gas would still need to be removed from the atmosphere to limit warming to 1.5^oC, which can only be achieved by carbon removal at scale.

However, in its current state, the voluntary carbon market is both too small and too risky. To meet this challenge, it needs to grow to the size of the oil and gas industry by 2050, and significantly improve the transparency and reliability of its carbon credits, which is currently deterring investment.

This is where carbon insurance comes in. By protecting investors from the financial and reputational risks associated with carbon credits, this insurance may have a significant role to play in both scaling-up and de-risking the voluntary carbon market. We’ll investigate:

• The key barriers to investment facing the voluntary carbon market;
• The potential role for insurance in making this market more effective;
• And the benefits of a scaled-up and de-risked voluntary carbon market for fighting both climate change and biodiversity loss.

We'll also showcase the role of start-ups in this space, as they bring fresh perspectives, innovative products, and a willingness to take on big challenges to the issue of climate change.

For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate

If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com

Links from today’s discussion:

• Kita - https://www.kita.earth/
• The Earthshot Prize - https://earthshotprize.org/
• Carbon13 - https://carbonthirteen.com/
• Verra - https://verra.org/
• Gold Standard - https://www.goldstandard.org/

Speaker’s Bio

Natalia Dorfman is the CEO and co-founder of Kita, a carbon insurance specialist. Kita’s purpose is accelerating investment in high quality carbon sequestration projects with insurance that reduces transaction risk and safeguards the performance of carbon purchases. Kita’s flagship insurance product is Carbon Purchase Protection Cover, protecting buyers of forward purchased carbon credits against under-delivery. In 2023, Kita was nominated for the Earthshot Prize in the category of Fix Our Climate.

Prior to founding Kita, Natalia spent 15 years as a business development and strategy specialist within the legal sector, including leading the Climate Risk practice strategy as Global Head of New Business at Clyde & Co LLP. Her experience with large corporations on their climate change-related challenges inspired her to help accelerate positive change through entrepreneurship. She was named among the “Top 100 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch” by NatWest and the Telegraph in November 2022.