Why Nature-Based Solutions Are Essential for Emissions Management

And Must Be Placed on an Equal Footing with Technological Ones

This is my first guest post. It is from Ana Luci Grizzi, a board member & senior advisor. She has a strong background in sustainability and is based in Sao Paolo.

Technological innovation is often hailed as the cornerstone of climate mitigation. From direct air capture to carbon storage, industrial solutions are attracting unprecedented levels of capital, policy attention, and regulatory support. But as carbon markets and net-zero strategies evolve, one critical evaluation demands emphasis: technology alone will not suffice.

If we are to manage emissions effectively, equitably, and at scale, nature-based solutions must be treated as equally viable options—designed, regulated, and valued under the same integrity frameworks as technological removals. This is about effectiveness.

Today, the rules being drafted across jurisdictions—from national carbon markets to Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement—will define which mitigation pathways are seen as investable, scalable, and credible. The Global North must resist the temptation to default to industrial comfort zones. And the Global South, often rich in natural capital, must assert its role not as a carbon offset supplier, but as a co-architect of a more plural climate future.

Two Realities, One Goal

The need to reduce greenhouse gases emissions is clear. How to achieve this remains subject to diverging pathways.

On one side, we see a wave of enthusiasm for engineered removals: carbon capture and storage (CCS), carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), bioenergy with carbon capture (BECCS), and direct air capture (DAC). These technologies are essential to address hard-to-abate sectors. They also offer the promise of permanence and quantifiability-qualities that resonate with investors and regulators alike.

Yet, these same technologies often require high upfront investment, depend on public subsidies, and come with unresolved questions around long-term monitoring and liability. Their permanence, often presumed, may be a matter of geological uncertainty.

On the other side, nature-based solutions—such as forest restoration and agricultural soil carbon enhancement—offer immediate mitigation potential, ecosystem co-benefits, and social dividends. They are particularly relevant for countries in the Global South, where natural capital is still available and project implementation can be faster and more cost-effective.

What is missing is parity. While technology-based projects are welcomed into regulated carbon frameworks, nature-based solutions face persistent skepticism, often framed as “too risky,” “too temporary,” or “too difficult to verify.”

Photo by Rohit Tandon on Unsplash

Integrity Is the Standard—For All Pathways

The credibility of any emissions reduction or removal claim must be rooted in clear standards. These include rigorous monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV), provisions for permanence and reversals, and accountability mechanisms for both project developers and credit buyers.

These criteria must apply equally to all mitigation types.

For nature-based projects, the burden of proof is high, and rightly so. But the same scrutiny must be applied to technological approaches. A recent Financial Times report, citing a study from the Imperial College London, raised concerns about the geological stability and leakage risks associated with CCS and CCUS. Even flagship projects, like Norway’s Longship, have proceeded only under conditions of major public subsidy, raising questions about long-term viability and cost competitiveness.

Nature-based solutions are often judged by their worst examples. Technology is still judged by its promises. That asymmetry must end.

The climate system does not reward ideology. It rewards atmospheric outcomes. If a ton of CO₂ is verifiably avoided or removed, the pathway matters less than the integrity of the accounting and the permanence of the benefit.

Article 6.4: The Gatekeeper

The Paris Agreement’s Article 6.4 mechanism is being designed as a centralized international crediting system, and it is likely to become a global reference point for national crediting regimes. Its Supervisory Body is actively developing and approving methodologies, rules, and operational standards that will determine which project types and approaches can receive Article 6.4 credits.

These decisions carry enormous weight. The current direction includes the introduction of reversal risk buffers, guidelines for permanence assessment, and possible exclusions of credit types that do not meet defined standards.

There is a legitimate effort to ensure environmental integrity. But there is also a risk of overcorrecting from excluding entire categories of projects, particularly nature-based ones, based on theoretical risks while allowing high-cost technologies through under more flexible assumptions.

This is where parity becomes urgent. The mechanisms under Article 6.4, and those that follow, must not codify a hierarchy of removals that systematically favors tech methods. Instead, they should create a framework in which all credible solutions compete under the same rules, with risks transparently priced and managed.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

What True Parity Requires

Parity is not about flattening distinctions. Nature and technology operate on different timelines, costs, and co-benefits. What parity demands is that these differences are managed through proportionate governance, not through exclusion or preference.

This means:

• Setting consistent MRV and liability expectations;

• Defining permanence not as a binary but as a risk spectrum, managed accordingly;

• Calibrating buffers and reversal mechanisms based on evidence, not assumptions;

• Recognizing the social and ecological co-benefits of nature-based solutions as part of their value;

• Avoiding regulatory frameworks that channel capital exclusively into capital-intensive technological solutions;

• Taking into account local/regional realities, especially in terms of natural capital, businesses methods and methodologies and energy sources.

To achieve this, federal governments, market standard-setters, and multilateral institutions must shift their framing: from method-based trust to integrity-based governance.

This shift means moving away from pre-judging the credibility of a mitigation approach based on its category (technological or nature-based) and instead evaluating all solutions against transparent, science-based currently known criteria.

A common-based approach must acknowledge that no mitigation category offers 100% certainty in terms of permanence. Technological solutions evolve rapidly, and new findings may contradict early assumptions. Forests may be vulnerable to criminal fires. Meanwhile, tropical regenerative agriculture may be storing significantly more carbon in deeper soil layers than what has been observed in temperate agricultural regions.

Method-based trust assumes that some pathways, particularly engineered removals, are inherently more reliable. But integrity-based governance demands that all approaches (whether rooted in industrial infrastructure or ecological processes) be assessed through the same lens: clear MRV standards, permanence and reversal safeguards, environmental and social impact, and accountability mechanisms. Only through this approach can carbon markets be both inclusive and credible, enabling a diverse portfolio of mitigation options to emerge based on performance, not perception.

Photo by Maria Stewart on Unsplash

A Global Agenda, Not a Divided One

This discussion is not regional. Countries in the Global North must re-evaluate whether their carbon market rules are inadvertently closing the doors to Global South participation - by privileging mitigation solutions that are mostly feasible only in industrialized economies where subsidies can be provided.

At the same time, countries in the Global South must engage strategically in global negotiations, build robust MRV infrastructure, and articulate the value of their nature-based projects not as charity offsets, but as integral contributions to global climate goals.

Carbon markets are only as inclusive as their rulebooks allow them to be. The risk now is that governance choices made in one part of the world lock others out - not on grounds of performance, but on assumptions of method.

Conclusion: Integrity, Regardless of Origin

We cannot afford a false dichotomy between technology and nature. The scale and urgency of the climate crisis demand both - and more.

What matters most is the integrity of the system that holds all mitigation approaches to account. Markets and policies must evolve to recognize that emissions management is not about technological supremacy. It is about environmental credibility, scientific rigor, and transition pathways that reflect the realities and capacities of all countries.

Parity, in this context, is not a luxury. It is a necessity.

Let us shape a future where every ton of avoided or removed carbon is valued not by how it is delivered, but by how well it is governed.

Ana Luci Grizzi