Sep 19, 2026 · 33 min · 14 segments
This week, we kick off *Catching Up On Climate 2026* with Dirk Forrister, President & CEO of IETA. David Greely sits down with Dirk to discuss what he and IETA have been focused on this past year…
Dirk ForristerGuest
David GreelyHost
You mentioned California and Quebec, and I'm interested in the kind of how various regional markets, as we see them popping up in so many more places now, how they're working together.
Because I think there's a focus on the EU ETS and exporting its approach via things like the carbon border adjustment mechanism.
But maybe could you talk a little bit about how California and Quebec are working together? And is that a model for other regional cooperation?
We did a research project with Rob Stavins and his team at Harvard probably eight or 10 years ago where we explored this and we talked a bit about benefits of collaboration.
And the way we differentiated was kind of the old school way under the Kyoto Protocol was kind of a hub and spoke where the hub was the UN mechanism that could be used anywhere, right? But it had these tentacles reaching out to developing countries for supply and to developed countries for demand.
And then we got the California model, which is quite interesting because it's more of an approach where countries design a system in a common way, or states in this case.
They had a whole process that A number of states in the Western U.S., the Western Climate Initiative, co-designed a program.
By the way, they borrowed that idea from REGI, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the Northeast U.S., and states could opt in.
So it's been slower to evolve in the WCI because it's a big choice to opt into a system.
But if you've had a role in designing it and you have comfort level, especially that the level of ambition of your trading partners is pretty much on par with you, it I think has a lot of merit.
Frankly, I consider Corsia to be that model where countries banded together, decided what types of units would be eligible.
They decided what role they wanted for sustainable aviation fuel to play and efficiency improvements to play kind of alongside the carbon market program and i think that's been a beneficial design so that it eased people in the other place that we're seeing it though is in some respects japan's approach in dealing with all of its trading partners with mous in place with supplier countries defining how that, it's a sizable market, Japan, what kind of imported credits they would like to see.
That's why it's got these, for those that aren't aficionados, it's got sort of two paths you can take.
6.2, where you're free to do that as long as there are guarantees of no double counting.
Or you can use more of the hub and spoke model, which is leaning into the supply coming in through the UN mechanism itself under Article 6.4. On the former, you can get going a little faster.
You can utilize standards like ArcTree's, ACR, Vera, CAR that are already approved for compliance in Corsia.
You mentioned California and Quebec, and I'm interested in the kind of how various regional markets, as we see them popping up in so many more places now, how they're working together.
Because I think there's a focus on the EU ETS and exporting its approach via things like the carbon border adjustment mechanism.
But maybe could you talk a little bit about how California and Quebec are working together? And is that a model for other regional cooperation?
We did a research project with Rob Stavins and his team at Harvard probably eight or 10 years ago where we explored this and we talked a bit about benefits of collaboration.
And the way we differentiated was kind of the old school way under the Kyoto Protocol was kind of a hub and spoke where the hub was the UN mechanism that could be used anywhere, right? But it had these tentacles reaching out to developing countries for supply and to developed countries for demand.
And then we got the California model, which is quite interesting because it's more of an approach where countries design a system in a common way, or states in this case.
They had a whole process that A number of states in the Western U.S., the Western Climate Initiative, co-designed a program.
By the way, they borrowed that idea from REGI, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the Northeast U.S., and states could opt in.
So it's been slower to evolve in the WCI because it's a big choice to opt into a system.
But if you've had a role in designing it and you have comfort level, especially that the level of ambition of your trading partners is pretty much on par with you, it I think has a lot of merit.
Frankly, I consider Corsia to be that model where countries banded together, decided what types of units would be eligible.
They decided what role they wanted for sustainable aviation fuel to play and efficiency improvements to play kind of alongside the carbon market program and i think that's been a beneficial design so that it eased people in the other place that we're seeing it though is in some respects japan's approach in dealing with all of its trading partners with mous in place with supplier countries defining how that, it's a sizable market, Japan, what kind of imported credits they would like to see.
That's why it's got these, for those that aren't aficionados, it's got sort of two paths you can take.
6.2, where you're free to do that as long as there are guarantees of no double counting.
Or you can use more of the hub and spoke model, which is leaning into the supply coming in through the UN mechanism itself under Article 6.4. On the former, you can get going a little faster.
You can utilize standards like ArcTree's, ACR, Vera, CAR that are already approved for compliance in Corsia.
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