Greenhouse Gas Market Report 2025: The New Carbon Order

IETA’s report provides a detailed overview of compliance and voluntary carbon markets in 2025. It reviews Article 6 readiness, ETS growth, CORSIA’s first operational phase, evolving VCM demand signals and the rise of high-integrity credits. The report analyses governance gaps, data and registry interoperability, legal clarity and digital MRV as critical enablers of scale. It highlights how emerging policy frameworks and corporate demand are driving a new phase of integration across global carbon markets.

Carbon market integrity: How to move beyond the limitations and uncertainties?

Published by AFD, this briefing examines the structural complexity of carbon credits and the institutional factors shaping carbon market integrity. It details technical risks, additionality, permanence, over-crediting, leakage and double counting, and how information asymmetry affects credit quality. The paper reviews ICVCM, VCMI, Article 6 and registry reforms, arguing that alignment with NDCs, legal clarity and transparent infrastructure are essential for a high-integrity VCM.

Roadmap on the Baku to Belém roadmap to 1.3T

Published by the COP29 and COP30 Presidencies, this roadmap outlines pathways to mobilise at least USD 1.3 trillion annually in climate finance for developing countries by 2035. It presents five priority action fronts, highlights barriers across public and private finance, and proposes reforms to expand access, resilience and equity.

State of Finance for Forests 2025: Unlock. Unleash.

The report by UNEP benchmarks current flows against needs and finds a large annual gap to 2030. It proposes unlocking capital through clear national rules (including Article 6 readiness), integrity standards, and pipelines that blend public instruments with private demand from VCM/compliance markets. Case references show how registry, MRV and safeguards architecture, paired with de-risking tools, can mobilise scaled, durable investment aligned with climate and biodiversity goals.

Guidelines for Blue Finance (Version 2.0)

Published by IFC’s, this guidance frames blue finance within green/sustainable markets and adds clearer eligibility screens across water, plastics, shipping, aquaculture and marine conservation. It offers example KPIs/indicators, links to IFC Performance Standards and Paris alignment, and case studies for structuring blue bonds/loans and SLIs. It helps market participants select activities, manage E&S risks, and disclose results that build integrity and investor confidence.

High-risk forests, high-value returns: The State of Finance for Forests

This report by UNEP calls for bold investment in high-integrity forest solutions across tropical regions. It finds that finance is not only insufficient but poorly targeted, flowing primarily to lower-risk geographies. It outlines how to redirect capital using guarantees, public-private co-investment, and reformed mandates to support frontline communities, Indigenous groups, and tropical governments.

State of Finance for Forests (SFF) report: Unlock. Unleash. Realizing forest potential requires tripling investments in forests by 2030

Published by UNEP, this report tracks global forest finance flows and gaps. With only US$84 billion mobilised in 2023, mainly public, it warns of a US$216 billion annual shortfall to 2030. The report urges governments to use sovereign green bonds, debt swaps and blended finance to crowd in private investment, while expanding integrity-based carbon markets and directing more funding to Indigenous and local communities.

Catalyzing carbon markets: The role and opportunity for financial institutions

This VCMI-ISFC report highlights how financial institutions can shape, scale, and de-risk high-integrity carbon markets. It outlines eight practical entry points, from fund management to policymaker engagement, to accelerate capital flows and build market confidence amid regulatory and reputational uncertainty.

Unlocking finance for nature-based carbon projects along the capital continuum

Nature-based carbon projects face acute early-stage finance gaps. This report applies the Capital Continuum Framework to match project risk profiles with appropriate financial instruments, from concessional capital and prepayments to credit-backed securitisation. It outlines how carbon finance can serve both catalytic and transitional roles, bridging high-impact landscapes to long-term sustainability. Backed by investor interviews and project case studies, it offers a structured pathway for unlocking finance at scale.