The Crypto Climate Accord has launched a project to decarbonize the energy consumption of cryptocurrencies by 2025.
The Crypto Climate Accord is an alliance of several crypto companies aiming to make the energy consumption of cryptocurrencies carbon-free. Big names such as CoinShares, ConsenSys, Ripple and UNFCCC Climate Champions have already signed up.
In fact, the main problem of cryptocurrencies in the field of energy is not the energy consumption itself, but its ecological footprint. Decarbonizing this consumption would mean minimizing the environmental impact, as cryptocurrencies only use electricity, which can very well be produced from renewable sources.
The idea comes from the Energy Web Foundation, Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and Alliance for Innovative Regulation (AIR), and has the support of dozens of private companies such as Ripple and Exaion (EDF Energy).
The goal is to make the cryptocurrency industry solely based on renewable energy in record time.
Crypto Climate Accord: the agreement to reduce the energy consumption of cryptocurrencies
The Crypto Climate Accord is inspired by the Paris Climate Agreement, and aims to bring together the crypto and financial technology industry to build a sustainable future, with the support of the Climate Champions of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The aim of the project is to work in partnership with the cryptocurrency industry, including all blockchains, to achieve exclusive consumption of renewable energy by 2025, or even earlier.
The Agreement will use a “big tent” approach and serve as a coordination framework to decarbonize all aspects of the industry. Energy Web, AIR and RMI have also developed three high-level goals for the Accord, to be finalized before the UN COP 26 climate conference later this year, namely to enable all blockchains to be powered by 100% renewable sources by the 2025 UNFCCC COP conference, to develop an open source accounting standard to measure emissions from the cryptocurrency sector and to achieve zero net emissions for the entire cryptocurrency sector, including all operations, by 2040.
So far, more than 20 companies and individuals have joined the Agreement:
Acciona, Allinfra, Circulor, CoinShares, Compass Mining, ConsenSys, C02ken, D-REC Initiative, Decarbbitcoin Labs, Energy Web, Engie, Exaion (EDF), Global Blockchain Business Council, GSR, Hut 8 Mining, I-REC Standard, PTT, RECDeFi, Ripple, Singapore Power Group, South Pole, Streambed Media, Tom Steyer, UNFCCC Climate Champions, Web3 Foundation and XRP Ledger Foundation.
UN COP26’s High-Level Champion of Climate Action, Nigel Topping, said:
“In addition to urgently eliminating future emissions, this industry is uniquely placed to address its historical emissions debt. The very nature of blockchains enables historical system-wide transparency, making crypto’s emissions debt a ripe target for carbon dioxide removal solutions. This is a unique chance to publicly clean up the past, reject future emissions, and push the boundaries of climate leadership”.
