BRICS nations ready to cooperate for carbon market partnership

According to a report by The Hindu, BRICS nations are striving to implement a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the 'BRICS Carbon Markets Partnership'. The 'New Delhi Declaration', issued at the 18th BRICS Summit held in New Delhi, has officially confirmed that members are keen to advance this partnership.

Currently, the commitment to this partnership is at a limited level, primarily restricted to capacity building and the sharing of experiences. No specific trading framework, targets, or definite timelines for implementation have been determined so far. This MoU was previously accepted at the Rio Summit in 2025 and has now been reiterated in New Delhi.

As India enters the final quarter of its BRICS presidency, making this partnership truly operational requires not just a common trading platform, but also a uniform rulebook for measurement, reporting, and verification.

The report states that the eight members of BRICS manage voluntary markets. More than one-third of the carbon credit projects registered worldwide are located in Brazil, China, India, and Indonesia. Emission control systems are also evolving in these countries. China has included industries such as steel, cement, and aluminium in its Emission Trading System (ETS) through its 2024-25 allocation plan.

In India, emission-intensity targets have been announced for 490 entities across nine different sectors through the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS), and an offset mechanism has also been launched. In Brazil, the Brazilian Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading System (SBCE) has been established via a 2024 law, which is a cap-and-trade system. However, the markets of all these countries are distinct and none are linked to one another. Thus, this is a significant step towards increasing cooperation in the field of carbon markets among BRICS nations.