32nd Week Carbon Credit Markets 2025. Blockchain, exemplary NDCs 🇰🇭🇸🇧, port at risk 🇺🇸, SEC litigation, wheat ethanol 🇧🇷, AI 🇺🇳, standards 🇬🇧🇪🇺, events 🇧🇷🇦🇺🇪🇹🇲🇽. Carbon Forum.
- Art Dam
- Aug 17
- 8 min read
Monday, 18 August 2025.
Highlights from the 32nd Carbon Credit Markets 2025 week.
- Carbon Credits. Bank from 🇺🇸 United States bets on blockchain to revolutionize the market; and details of the exemplary NDCs of 🇰🇭 Cambodia and 🇸🇧 Solomon Islands
- Other Highlights. 🇺🇸 United States: Army works to protect the country’s 3rd largest port from sea level rise; bank launches Green and Social Bond ETF for Emerging Markets; slowdown in clean energy expansion; SEC’s climate rules under litigation; and export of technology for ethanol production from wheat to 🇧🇷 Brazil.
- Opportunities. 🇧🇷 Everything presented at the Fastmarkets Latin America Carbon Forum; AI tools showcased at the 🇺🇳 UN Adaptation Expo; 🇬🇧 UK Sustainability Reporting Standards; and 🇪🇺 Survey on the Amended ESRS Exposure Drafts 2025.
- Events. 🇧🇷IETA Latin America Climate Summit (Aug 26–28); 🇦🇺Carbon Derivatives Seminar (Aug 28 to Oct 30); 🇪🇹 #ClimateWeek2025 (Sept 1–6); 🇪🇹 Africa Climate Summit (Sept 8–10); and 🇲🇽 Mexico Carbon Forum 2025(Sept 10–11)
CARBON CREDITS
🇺🇸 JPMorgan is betting on blockchain to revolutionize the carbon credit market.
JPMorgan, through its Kinexys unit, has launched an innovative application to tokenize carbon credits directly at the registration layer, in partnership with S&P Global Commodity Insights, EcoRegistry, and the International Carbon Registry. The initiative aims to address key challenges in the voluntary carbon market—such as lack of standardization, transparency, and fragmentation—by creating an interoperable global ecosystem. With complete traceability and greater efficiency, tokenization can increase market trust and liquidity, as well as facilitate integration with financial institutions and environmental service providers. Read the official JPMorgan press release.
🪙 Carbon Credits and Article 6 — from the Mekong River to the Pacific Ocean: what Cambodia and Solomon Islands bring in their new NDCs.
🇰🇭 Cambodia, in Southeast Asia, has about 17.8 million inhabitants, the majority Buddhist and rural. With a tropical climate and flat terrain, it is crossed by the Mekong River and Lake Tonlé Sap. Its economy depends on agriculture, the textile industry, and tourism. The country is home to biodiverse tropical forests, especially in the mountainous regions, but faces accelerated deforestation due to agricultural activities and illegal logging. It also faces challenges such as rural poverty, low industrialization, and climate impacts, such as flooding and extreme monsoon variations.
Cambodia's new NDC is worth highlighting:
About Carbon Credits and the Carbon Market, as strategic tools to finance climate actions and promote sustainable development:
Creation of a National Carbon Registry: The country is developing a system to track and record carbon credit transactions.
Carbon Credit Secretariat (CCS): Responsible for coordinating policies and ensuring environmental integrity in transactions.
Key sectors involved: Energy, transport, industry, and land use are the main sectors where carbon credits can be generated.
Climate finance: Cambodia aims to access international funds such as the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the new Loss and Damage Response Fund (LDRF).
About Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, that addresses voluntary international cooperation to achieve climate goals, including market-based mechanisms:
Explores opportunities for bilateral and multilateral cooperation under Article 6.2 (transfer of mitigation outcomes).
Plans to participate in market mechanisms under Article 6.4, which involve internationally registered and approved projects.
Seeks international technical and financial support to implement these mechanisms with transparency and environmental integrity.
Integrates Article 6 into its climate finance strategy, especially for conditional measures that depend on external support.
Ans about the General Strategy
Cambodia estimates a total cost of USD 32.2 billion to implement its NDC 3.0 between 2026 and 2035.
Mitigation: USD 22.68 billion
Adaptation: USD 9.37 billion
Preparatory measures: USD 172 million
Nearly two-thirds of this amount are allocated to the energy sector, with a focus on increasing the share of renewable energy to up to 80% of the electricity mix by 2035.
The country is relying on blended finance, carbon markets, and private investment as key pillars to achieve its climate goals.
🇸🇧 The Solomon Islands, located in Oceania about 2,000 km from Papua New Guinea, are an archipelago made up of hundreds of tropical islands with rich biodiversity and a humid equatorial climate. The population of approximately 840,000 is predominantly Melanesian and lives in rural communities with a strong presence of subsistence agriculture and artisanal fishing. The economy depends on the export of timber, palm oil, and cocoa, as well as significant foreign aid. However, the country faces serious environmental challenges, such as accelerated deforestation, coral reef degradation, and the effects of climate change—including rising sea levels, which have already caused the disappearance of islands and the displacement of coastal communities.
The new NDC from the Solomon Islands indicates the following:
Article 6 of the Climate Convention (UNFCCC): The Solomon Islands acknowledge the potential to participate in international carbon markets as outlined in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which enables cooperation between countries to achieve climate goals through the transfer of emission reductions.
Intent to Participate: The country expresses interest in trading carbon credits generated from reforestation, renewable energy, and forest conservation projects, although it is still in the institutional and technical preparation phase.
Conditions for Participation:
Requires international support in the form of financing, capacity building, and technology transfer.
Needs to develop robust Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) systems to ensure transparency and environmental integrity.
Plans to use a new national tool called the iMRV Tool to track and validate emission reductions.
Removal Potential: The country’s existing forests remove approximately 30 times more CO₂ than its total national emissions, positioning the Solomon Islands as a potential net exporter of carbon credits.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
🇺🇸 US Army Corps proposes $1.1 billion mega-wall to protect Charleston from rising seas.
Impressive proposal calls for a 12-foot-high (almost 4 meters) and 14-kilometer-long wall around the historic peninsula of Charleston, South Carolina—where the American Civil War began—to protect the third-largest port in the United States from storm surges and accelerating sea level rise. With an estimated cost of $1.1 billion, the project includes natural barriers and sustainable solutions, aiming to preserve hospitals, neighborhoods, and historic sites threatened by increasingly frequent flooding. Founded over 250 years ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency affiliated with the United States Army, responsible for civil and military engineering projects. Read more about the project.
🇺🇸🏛️Goldman Sachs Launches a Green and Social Bond ETF for Emerging Markets.
The fund focuses on green and social bonds issued by governments and companies in emerging markets committed to environmental and social impact projects, such as clean energy, sustainable infrastructure, and social inclusion. Combining credit analysis with ESG criteria, the ETF offers investors a way to align financial returns with positive impact in high-growth potential regions. Read the press release dated June 18, 2025.
🇺🇸 A new bill in the US threatens to curb the expansion of clean energy by 2030, according to BloombergNEF.
While the US is strengthening tax credits for carbon capture and storage (CCS), the recently passed "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" is restricting access to tax credits for clean energy, which is expected to significantly slow the growth of solar, wind, and storage projects by 2030.
Projected decline: BloombergNEF estimates a 23% reduction in new clean energy installations by 2030, with highlights including:
Onshore wind: 50% drop
Solar: 23% drop
Energy storage: 7% drop
Tax credits: Developers must begin construction by the end of 2025 to secure incentives, avoiding restrictions on foreign entities and potential new Treasury regulations.
High risks: The rush to start projects requires risky decisions about supply chain, grid connection, permitting, and financing—which can drive away smaller companies.
Long-term outlook: Despite the obstacles, BloombergNEF believes the U.S. clean energy market will remain resilient due to its competitiveness against natural gas and nuclear power.
🇺🇸 SEC Backtracks on Climate Rule, Leaves Decision to Court – JDSupra Summary
The SEC created a rule that would have required companies to disclose climate-related risks, but after political changes, it stopped defending it in court. In response to the court, the SEC stated that it will not change the rule, but it will also not fight for it, leaving the final decision in the hands of the Court. Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw sharply criticized this stance, saying the SEC is ignoring the legal process. For now, the rule remains on hold. Read the details at JDSupra.
🌾 Innovation in Brazil: Wheat Ethanol Arrives with North American Technology
Brazil has always been a leader in sugarcane-based ethanol production, but is now advancing its diversification with a Be8 Energy project in Passo Fundo, Rio Grande do Sul, which will use winter cereals such as wheat, triticale, and corn. The technology and leadership for the project are provided by the globally recognized North American company KATZEN International, which already operates a significant portion of the country's grain ethanol capacity. Scheduled for 2026, the plant will produce 210 million liters of ethanol per year, in addition to byproducts such as DDGS and vital gluten, strengthening the agro-industrial chain and reducing dependence on imports. See the press release here.
OPPORTUNITIES
🇧🇷 Fastmarkets Latin America Carbon Forum 2025. Click here to read in detail about the highlights below.
1. Global carbon credit market to grow 6.5-fold by 2030
2. Latin America leads globally in forest credit issuance
3. Brazil's leading role in creating a regulated carbon market
4. Carbon is beginning to be treated as a strategic forest asset
5. Project attracting investments from Apple and Goldman Sachs
6. BBB-rated ARR credits can be worth up to 5.5 times more than C-rated ones
7. Challenge of ensuring credit integrity for up to 40 years
8. Economic viability of restoration projects in the Amazon
9. Upside potential: from US$2–3 to US$50 with proper governance
10. Increasing buyer sophistication
🇺🇳🇿🇲 UN Adaptation Expo Lusaka, Zambia. AI guidelines and tools launched, while leaders warn that the poorest suffer the worst consequences. Read here about the largest annual event on climate adaptation.
🇬🇧 UK Sustainability Reporting Standards. Based on international standards IFRS S1 and S2, with minor adaptations for the UK context. Public consultation until September 17, 2025.
🇪🇺Survey on the Amended ESRS Exposure Drafts 2025. By the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG), on the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), proposing a 68% reduction in the data required without compromising the quality of the information. Public consultation until September 29, 2025.
EVENTS
🇧🇷 📍August 26-28, IETA Latin America Climate Summit, in São Paulo, Brazil. Details and registration here.
🇦🇺📍August 28 to October 30, Carbon Derivatives Seminar. A free seminar series explores how derivatives can support companies in managing carbon emissions risks and obligations, focusing on carbon futures and their role in the climate market. A partnership between the Carbon Market Institute and the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). In-person, various dates and cities across Australia. Details here.
🇪🇹📍September 1-6 #ClimateWeek2025 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It will include a series of preparatory events for COP 30 in Belém, such as meetings on the "Mutirão", the climate action agenda, and a mandatory dialogue on strengthening the role of local communities in the UNFCCC process. Details here.
🇪🇹📍September 8-10, Africa Climate Summit, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Discussion of various topics also in preparation for COP30.
🇲🇽📍September 10 and 11, Mexico Carbon Forum 2025, at the Expo Tampico Convention Center in Tamaulipas. Details of the fifth edition of the event are available here.
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