Climate Action Reserve Adopts Revised Permanence Approach

The revised approach expands options for long-term carbon storage by providing a comprehensive and operationally practical approach to manage reversal risk

LOS ANGELES – Climate Action Reserve today adopted a revised approach to permanence, following a nine-month work program and public feedback process. The revised approach affects all protocols with permanence risk in the Reserve’s voluntary carbon crediting program, reflecting evolving science, market innovation, and implementation tools.

The Reserve’s revised permanence approach provides project developers with greater flexibility to protect long-term carbon storage and offers buyers and market participants greater clarity into how a project’s permanence risks are addressed over time. By expanding the tools available to address reversal risk, the approach is a more flexible, transparent, and enforceable framework for supporting durable climate benefits.

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Under the revised approach, the Reserve employs a comprehensive permanence framework that sets a standard commitment period of 40 years during which projects have ongoing responsibility for monitoring, reporting, and verification of its carbon stocks and compensating for any reversals. Reversal risk during the commitment period is managed through the contribution of carbon credits to a buffer pool or alternative approaches such as insurance.

In addition, the revised approach provides mechanisms to mitigate reversal risk beyond the commitment period of 40 years through one of the following actions: implementing an action that sufficiently mitigates reversal risk (e.g. a long-term conservation easement), transferring liability for reversal monitoring and compensation to an eligible entity (e.g. a permanence trust), or cancelling credits with negligible risk of reversal.

The revised approach also maximizes transparency for permanence claims by providing information in the Reserve registry on the length and end date of a project’s commitment period, how a project will monitor carbon stocks and compensate for losses in the case of a reversal, and if and how the project will manage reversal risk after its commitment period.

“The revised approach recognizes the meaningful climate value provided by greenhouse gas storage across a range of time horizons, reflects the evolution of permanence approaches in the carbon market, and provides maximum transparency into project activities, all within a practical and enforceable framework aligned with generational timelines,” said Robin Rix, President, of the Climate Action Reserve.

The approach was adopted by the Reserve’s Board of Directors on June 30, following an extensive work program with support from the permanence work group, comprised of carbon market leaders, climate scientists, and community representatives. Two public comment periods (September 2025, June 2026) and a public webinar were convened to gather comments on the revised approach.

The Reserve will next operationalize the approach by updating programmatic documents and applicable protocols. Existing projects may choose to remain under the current protocol version through the end of their crediting period or transition to the revised permanence approach once it is available.

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The Climate Action Reserve develops and implements trusted market-based programs to advance climate action for people and planet. A leader in high-integrity carbon accounting, we serve global carbon markets, envisioning a world cooperating to solve climate change at speed and scale.