Enabling National Ownership in a High-Integrity Global Carbon Market

Background and Objective

In recent times, there has been an emergence of new regulations or frameworks governing carbon market activities in multiple jurisdictions. Furthermore, several governments have implemented or explored the development of national crediting frameworks, either to complement or replace established international standards. It is expected that more governments will introduce regulations over the coming years, both to underpin their use of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, or simply to monitor or regulate carbon market activities within their jurisdiction. Through this initiative, Gold Standard worked to respond to and support the growing involvement of governments across the world in the regulation of voluntary carbon market activities. The program focused on enhancing public awareness regarding the implementation of new regulations, providing best practice models, and deepening the alignment between international standards and emerging national frameworks to maximise the benefits of this transition for local communities, governments, and project developers.

Implementation

The programme ran for 18 months, from November 2023 to April 2025, encompassing the following activities:

Smooth Transition to a Regulated Carbon Market: Technical assistance, guidance and information-sharing on the introduction of new market regulations globally, with solutions for project developers, governments and other actors.

Framework Design Aligning National with International Standards: Development and piloting of a new framework to enable labelling and alignment between national crediting programmes and Gold Standard, intended to allow governments to draw and build on Gold Standard’s twenty years of experience in standard-setting, while providing flexibility for project developers.

Cultivating Local Market Experts: Capacity development assistance in at least two countries to foster the development of skills and expertise amongst a new generation of market experts.

Results and Outlook 

The programme delivered outputs to support the scale-up of a high-integrity global carbon market that ensures a fair distribution of benefits during a time of significant evolution. It has done so by promoting local ownership, advancing robust crediting approaches, and providing guidance and information to support a smooth transition as governments take on a greater role overseeing and engaging on carbon market activities. 

As part of this effort, Gold Standard provided technical support to the governments of 21 countries as they develop or update carbon market regulations. The team submitted feedback on seven national frameworks and contributed to seven webinars on carbon market development, reaching over 2,000 attendees in total. One of the most impactful contributions of the programme was the development of a publicly accessible online tool that systematises global information on regulations related to carbon credit markets - now widely used by governments, project developers, investors and other stakeholders to navigate the evolving regulatory landscape.

In addition to producing guidance materials and newsletters, the team developed a framework for dual certification under Gold Standard for the Global Goals (GS4GG) and Thailand’s national crediting programme, Premium T-VER. This framework was stress-tested using an actual project and subsequently released for public consultation to enable peer-to-peer review. Gold Standard also led capacity-building efforts across five countries, including in-person workshops in Rwanda and Malaysia with 120 local participants, and a virtual masterclass series focused on the evolution of carbon markets and practical aspects of project development.
 

As a flagship achievement, the programme launched the first-of-its-kind Carbon Market Training Network and completed a pioneering study analysing the intersection of the carbon markets industry with higher education.
 

Key outputs of the programme include:
 

• A public tracker of national carbon market regulations ​
• Factsheets and newsletters on carbon markets​ regulation
• A framework for dual certification under GS4GG and Thailand’s Premium T-VER        programme
• A virtual masterclass series on carbon markets​
• A pilot Carbon Market Training Network​
• An academic landscape analysis of specialist carbon market roles​