Thomas McMahon, AirCarbon - Making Carbon trading frictionless, starting next week (S2E3)

Thomas McMahon is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AirCarbon, a Singapore-domiciled digital exchange focused on eliminating market friction in a carbon-constraint economy by securitizing carbon credits into fungible and tradable securities with transparent pricing and real-time settlement. The soft launch is currently planned for August 19, with the full go-live in September 2020. 

A veteran of the global commodities markets, with long experience in establishing by now well-accepted benchmarks like WTI, Tom is leading the push towards creating the first commodities exchange establishing a global carbon standard in compliance with various ESG and SDG requirements. 

Our conversation covers, among other topics:

- What are carbon credits, and how are they different from allowances?

- Previous attempts at creating emission trading schemes (ETS) under the Kyoto Protocol

- The difference to the current approach under the Paris Accord

- Producers and consumers of carbon credits, and the different products initially traded on AirCarbon

- The impact of building upon a blockchain platform on the ability to innovate on products

If you would like to join our podcast, please reach out to us at [email protected]