Carbon Markets Infrastructure (CMI) Working Group
Paving the way for a more safe, efficient, and interoperable carbon market infrastructure
Key highlights and updates
Key highlights and updates
Ongoing review and feedback collection on latest draft documents:
Currently, the Working Group has drafted the following documents:
- Draft Preliminary Ecosystem Mapping. It can be found here: [link].
- Draft CMI Roadmap. It can be found here: [link soon]
For feedback, please contact climatewarehouse@worldbank.org.
Upcoming meetings and sessions:
3rd Monthly Meeting:
- Welcome remarks and introduction of WG members and new participants
- Session 1: Updates from the World Bank on Priority I: Ecosystem Mapping
- Session 2: Updates from S&P and Xpansiv on Priority II: Information Security and Transaction Integrity
- Session 3: Kick-off on Priority Area III: Data and Systems Interoperability
- Closing remarks and next steps
What is the CMI WG?
What is the CMI WG?
Building robust and interoperable carbon market infrastructure is critical for ensuring market integrity and scalability. At COP28, the World Bank released an engagement roadmap towards rebuilding trustworthy and transparent carbon markets to have a tangible impact towards addressing the global climate crisis. This roadmap “High Integrity, High Impact: The World Bank Engagement Roadmap for Carbon Markets” recognized that the key enabler for this was reinstating trust in the carbon markets.
An integral part of reinstating and strengthening trust in carbon markets is through harmonizing and standardizing functionalities and entities across the carbon markets ecosystem. This would entail agreeing upon minimum service standards, common frameworks, and governance across the ecosystem of key players and entities such as principles-setters, independent standards, registries, validation and verification bodies, and rating agencies. This in turn requires entails working with all relevant stakeholders to unlock the most critical bottlenecks in global architecture and support development countries to build market infrastructure, institutions, and policy (see Figure 1 on key challenges and recommendations for carbon markets, in particular Figure 2, which illustrates challenges and potential solutions for carbon market infrastructure).
Figure 1. Key challenges and recommendations for carbon markets
Figure 1: State and Trends of Carbon Pricing: International Carbon Markets 2024
Figure 2. Key challenges to developing robust market infrastructure and potential solutions to address them
Figure 2: State and Trends of Carbon Pricing: International Carbon Markets 2024
In this context, the World Bank set up the Carbon Market Infrastructure (CMI) Working Group including a wide range of stakeholders ranging from policymakers, exchanges, regulators, standard setters, and other infrastructure providers across the value chain (see the current list of participants in the bottom of the page). The objective of the Working Group is to develop common frameworks and guidelines that will ensure a more efficient, secure, and interoperable carbon market infrastructure. This collaborative effort is essential for building a robust system that supports global carbon trading and contributes to effective climate action.
What are the expected outcomes of these efforts?
What are the expected outcomes of these efforts?
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Standardization, efficiency and harmonization of market infrastructure: |
| Strengthening standardization, efficiency, and unification of digitally enabled market infrastructure for carbon markets by identifying key functions of the market and establishing minimum service standards, common frameworks which are agreed upon by the WG. |
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Increased access to streamlined solutions for market infrastructure: |
| Facilitating better management of carbon assets to significantly improve the capacity of economies, particularly emerging ones, to engage in carbon markets and mobilize adequate financial resources. |
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Increased capacity building and technical assistance support: |
| Enhancing technical and institutional capacity at the country level. This encompasses technical assistance and capacity-building for developing host country strategies, policy frameworks, and carbon market infrastructure, including registries, MRV systems, and more. |
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Enhance investor confidence and mobilize private sector: |
| Strengthening carbon market infrastructure is essential for reinstating investor confidence. A robust infrastructure supported by adequate regulatory, policy, and framework measures is likely to enhance transparency and, in turn, foster trust in global carbon markets. |
What are the key priority areas identified within the CMI WG?
What are the key priority areas identified within the CMI WG?
In the Working Group inaugural meeting, participants identified and prioritized three essential areas for action based on the current bottlenecks —Ecosystem Governance, Information Security & Transaction Integrity, and Interoperability—which will guide the group’s efforts and collaborations moving forward.
Ecosystem Governance (Priority Area I):
Ambiguity regarding roles, liabilities, and governance structures, results in confusion and inefficiencies. To address this, the Working Group will conduct a comprehensive mapping of terminologies, technical definitions, roles of ecosystem players, functionalities, and governance gaps. This effort aims to clearly define and distinguish these elements within the ecosystem.
Information Security & Transaction Integrity (Priority Area II):
Poor documentation and inadequate knowledge of current practices and standards related to Information Technology security and transaction integrity measures, undermines trust in the market. To address this, the Working Group will develop common guidelines on good practises related to information technology security and transaction integrity in carbon markets to prevent fraud, ensure transparency, and uphold market trust.
- Kick-off Presentation on Priority Area II by S&P and Xpansiv [link]
Data and Systems Interoperability (Priority Area III):
Insufficient interoperability between data and system structures, along with the lack of a well-defined integrated marketplace architecture, hinders seamless collaboration and the efficient exchange of information. To address this, the Working Group will develop common guidelines on technical standards, data taxonomies and formats, and best practices aimed at strengthening interoperability.
What are the expected outputs of these efforts?
What are the expected outputs of these efforts?
The planned outputs of the Working Group are the following:
1. “A Roadmap for Safe, Efficient and Interoperable Carbon Markets Infrastructure” (to be released at COP29):
The roadmap will include a diagnostic assessment on key challenges, delve into the priority areas and key recommendations for safe, efficient, and interoperable carbon market infrastructure. This roadmap will also include a preliminary mapping of the carbon markets ecosystem, which will be revisited throughout the work of Priority Area I.
2. Three guidance notes dedicated to each identified priority area:
- “Guidance Note: Ecosystem Governance of Carbon Market Infrastructure” (to be released at SBSTA, June 2025)
- “Guidance Note: Transaction Integrity and Information Security” to implement key recommendations of the Roadmap (to be released at SBSTA, June 2025).
- “Guidance Note: Data and Systems Interoperability” to implement key recommendations of the Roadmap (to be released at SBSTA, June 2025).
Currently, the Working Group has drafted the following documents:
- Draft Preliminary Ecosystem Mapping. It can be found here: [link].
- Draft CMI Roadmap. It can be found here: [link soon]
For feedback, please contact climatewarehouse@worldbank.org.
Who are the current participants of the Working Group?
Who are the current participants of the Working Group?
If you are interested in joining the Working Group, please contact the Climate Warehouse team climatewarehouse@worldbank.org.
Members & Participants of the CMI Working Group
