In the fast-paced world of climate finance, crafting a high-integrity carbon credit mirrors the skillful work of a barista preparing the perfect espresso. It takes premium beans, the right brewing equipment, and a barista with a discerning touch, blending flavors into a cup that customers worldwide can trust and savor. Each element carefully measured to create sustainable jobs and improve livelihoods on a livable planet.
For years, the World Bank Group (WBG) played a central role in carbon market development: designing crediting methodologies, structuring carbon programs and supporting countries to generate and issue high-integrity carbon credits to be purchased by its carbon funds like the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), BioCarbon Fund Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes (ISFL), Transformative Carbon Asset Facility (TCAF), and Carbon Initiative for Development (Ci-Dev). Today, the WBG is evolving its role in the carbon value chain, working alongside countries as they take the lead in generating high-integrity credits and connecting them to carbon markets that can command premium value.
Carbon Market Infrastructure: Barista’s Brew Station
Every skilled barista needs a top-notch coffee shop to guarantee consistency and quality. In the carbon market, this “shop” is carbon market infrastructure, the digital espresso machines and point-of-sale systems that ensure credits are brewed, tracked, verified, and traded without risk of serving the same cup twice.
The WBG helps develop the carbon market’s “coffee shop” digital infrastructure to boost transparency and lower costs. At the heart of this effort is the Climate Action Data Trust (CADT), an independent, digital infrastructure connecting registries created with the Government of Singapore and IETA. CADT currently collects information across twelve registries, covering roughly 95% of total market volume, providing the transparency needed to build global buyer confidence.
One of these registries is the Carbon Assets Tracking System (CATS), the WBG’s secure, web-based “bean tracker” for monitoring Emission Reduction (ER) units issued by its programs. Its main goals are preventing double counting, selling, or claiming, ensuring data integrity, and promoting transparency through stakeholder involvement. To date, CATS has supported ER issuances and transactions for countries including Mozambique, Costa Rica, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Vietnam, Madagascar, Lao PDR, and Uzbekistan, transacting a cumulative volume of over 132 million ER units equivalent to approximately US $660 million, making it the most significant transaction platform for jurisdictional REDD+ globally.
Business-Enabling Policies: Pricing the Cup
Even the finest espresso needs discerning drinkers willing to pay for quality. In carbon markets, that starts with pricing. The WBG, through its Partnership for Market Implementation (PMI), aims to advance carbon pricing. It works across the market ecosystem to strengthen the frameworks that underpin demand and to ensure that client countries can participate in shaping them. This includes supporting the development of international rules such as Article 6 under the Paris Agreement and engaging with initiatives like the Coalition to Grow Carbon Markets to strengthen high integrity corporate demand. PMI also supports major emitting economies such as China, Brazil, South Africa, India, Mexico, Thailand, and Türkiye in developing and implementing carbon pricing instruments such as emissions trading systems and carbon taxes. As highlighted in the World Bank’s State and Trends of Carbon Pricing, these instruments now cover roughly 28 percent of global emissions and continue to expand.
Private Capital Mobilization: Packaging and Serving for Global Reach
The final step for a barista is making sure their coffee reaches as many customers as possible at the highest value. Public funds alone can’t fill every mug; mobilizing private capital is essential to turn growth into jobs and local opportunity.
The WBG is developing sophisticated financial "packaging" solutions to de-risk investments for private players, including carbon price guarantee and first loss cover. Through its Scaling Climate Action by Lowering Emissions (SCALE) fund, we aim to mobilize large-scale, private sector carbon finance for countries. SCALE provides technical assistance and de-risking instruments to help countries generate and monetize high-integrity carbon programs. By offering predictable funding streams and focusing on high-integrity credits, SCALE helps unlock investment, catalyze climate-smart policies, and accelerate the transition to low-carbon development pathways for client countries. In addition to traditional guarantees, the WBG is testing innovative solutions like carbon guarantee solutions, which aims to provide price floor guarantees to protect sellers in emerging markets from market volatility.
Real-world examples show how these blends are making it to market. The recent approval by the International Civil Aviation Organization of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and BioCarbon Fund Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes (ISFL) standards for Phase 1 of the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) opens new doors for countries with qualifying credits brewed under these programs to mobilize added resources. Ethiopia is set to become the first WBG-supported country to supply credits to the CORSIA market. In 2025, Côte d’Ivoire finished a $23 million transaction with a private buyer for credits from its forest carbon program. Also in 2025, Costa Rica sold 100,000 forest carbon credits, releasing them from an old contract when a new buyer offered $13 per ton, over double the original price.
The Perfect Brew for a Livable Planet
Like a skilled barista assembling a perfect blend, high-integrity carbon credits draw on three essential ingredients: strong infrastructure to streamline the brewing process, business-enabling policies to price the cup, and private capital mobilization to package and serve for global reach, including local communities. Well-designed carbon credits are the rich aroma that opens new paths and revenue, fueling progress toward a world free of poverty. Though the brew is still steeping and the taste evolving, the goal is clear: to foster a carbon marketplace where integrity is the main ingredient and climate-smart development benefits all.
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