Isa Mulder is a policy expert on global carbon markets at Carbon Market Watch.
In recent months, industry players as well as some conservation groups have been pushing to effectively lower the integrity and ambition of carbon markets under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
However, the need to finance nature does not excuse creating a carbon crediting mechanism devoid of environmental integrity, just to keep carbon projects commercially viable. The bar set by the Article 6 crediting mechanism must be high, as the price that nature will pay if we opt to rely on hot air credits to offset ongoing emissions is much higher.
Carbon credit markets have been a controversial feature of international climate politics since the establishment of the Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol, and later adoption under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
Although the Article 6 rulebook was finalised at last year’s COP in Baku – albeit with many worrisome gaps – the nitty-gritty of its carbon crediting mechanism is still being developed. That work is overseen by the Supervisory Body (SBM), a de facto regulator accountable to the signatory countries of the Paris Agreement.
Permanence rules weakened
Between July and September 2025, the Methodological Expert Panel (MEP) – the technical advisory committee reporting back to the SBM – produced draft rules on permanence, intended to spell out the steps that carbon market projects must take to guarantee their emission reductions or removals are permanently and securely stored on climate-relevant timeframes (centuries to millennia).
The MEP’s final recommendation introduced requirements for carbon projects considered at risk of losing their achieved results. This included requiring projects to monitor their claimed mitigation until it could be reliably demonstrated that the likelihood of re-releasing sequestered CO₂ (e.g., carbon stored in trees) into the atmosphere was negligible, such as through events like fire or logging. In essence, high-risk projects would need to keep a watchful eye on emission reductions or removals for as long as that risk remains significant.
The rationale behind this is that carbon credits are often used for offsetting purposes as a means to supposedly compensate for ongoing fossil fuel emissions, of which the negative impacts are nearly permanent.
It is therefore reasonable to expect that the carbon credits designed to compensate for this damage also guarantee positive impacts over a comparable duration. Failing to do so would mean that any apparent short-term benefits of offsetting would eventually become harmful and lead to net temperature increases, even before considering the broader environmental and social concerns related to offsetting.
However, this seemingly sound rationale rubbed many market actors the wrong way.
Whereas such documents typically attract only a handful of stakeholder responses, this one received over 170 reactions during the first and second rounds of consultations on the proposed rules.
Carbon Market Watch found that in the second round, three-quarters of commenters held direct or indirect financial interests in carbon markets and most of them strongly opposed the draft requirements. Their efforts were successful, and, as a result, weaker rules were adopted.
Carbon credits cannot save nature alone
Now turning their attention to COP30, many of the same market actors, along with some conservation organisations, are asking countries to further erode the integrity of the carbon crediting mechanism under Article 6.
Efforts to dilute these rules further risk derailing Article 6 at COP30, a conference which is meant to place nature front and centre. The misconception at the heart of this dangerous campaign is that stronger rules would negatively affect nature-based projects.
While it is undeniable that financing nature is essential for reaching our Paris Agreement goals, the need to finance nature is no good reason to create a carbon crediting mechanism lacking in environmental rigour, motivated by market actors’ desire to keep carbon projects commercially viable.
Is “hard-to-abate” really that hard – or is it a justification for delay?
Those in favour of weakening the rules often seem to conveniently overlook that most credits approved and circulating have been of very low quality and that they are used – mainly by big oil – to excuse business-as-usual emissions.
The scientific consensus holds that finance for nature must be scaled up to protect the natural world, but not by linking it to the offsetting of fossil emissions, whose climate impacts last for millennia. In fact, scientists have warned time and again about the serious shortcomings of relying on offsetting as a climate solution. If the credits used to compensate for fossil fuel emissions can’t make good on their promise, then climate change will worsen, and nature will end up being worse off.
The choice ahead of us is clear. Countries at COP30 will have to make a decision on the direction of travel for this discussion. The question is not how to bend carbon market rules to create a financing mechanism for nature-based offsetting projects, but how to uphold and strengthen those rules to protect nature itself.
