What the BRICS carbon market partnership needs

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On September 12, at the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi, the New Delhi Declaration confirmed that BRICS members look forward to implementing the Memorandum of Understanding on the BRICS Carbon Markets Partnership. The commitment remains modest: on capacity-building and experience-sharing, with no trading framework, targets or timeline. The Rio summit acknowledged the memorandum in 2025, and New Delhi has reiterated it. With India’s BRICS presidency entering its final quarter, operationalising the partnership requires not so much a common trading platform as a common rulebook.

Eight BRICS members reportedly operate voluntary markets, and Brazil, China, India and Indonesia host over a third of the carbon credit projects registered worldwide. Compliance systems are maturing, too. China’s emissions trading system (ETS) — added steel, cement and aluminium through its 2024-25 allocation plan. India’s Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS) has notified emission-intensity targets for 490 entities across nine sectors and opened an offset mechanism. Brazil’s Law of 2024 establishes the Brazilian Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading System (SBCE), a cap-and-trade system. However, none of these markets is linked to another.

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