By Marina Grossi*
The year 2025 brought important advances, both within and outside Brazil, regarding carbon markets. An important instrument for pricing greenhouse gases, carbon markets will be fundamental to achieving the objectives of the Paris Agreement, the main one being to limit the increase in the average global temperature to 1.5ºC.
For Brazil, the carbon market still has the potential to boost science, technology and innovation, attract investment and add competitiveness to global value chains, offering highly integral carbon credits that integrate the climate, nature and society agendas.
One year after the legal framework for the Brazilian carbon market — sanctioned in December 2024 with Law No. 15.042/24, after lengthy proceedings and different versions — the country has advanced to the decisive stage: regulation. The schedule presents five stages, the deadline for which can be up to five years.
The law created the Brazilian Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading System (SBCE), which establishes maximum emission limits for regulated entities for facilities and operations that emit more than 25,000 tons of CO₂ equivalent per year, encompassing sectors such as industry, energy, transportation, and waste.
For regulated entities, the SBCE provides a mechanism for cap and trade, allowing the trading of emission permits so that they comply with the established emission limit. In 2025, this regulatory system gained traction under the leadership of the new Extraordinary Secretariat of the Carbon Market, within the Ministry of Finance, responsible for regulating and implementing the system.
The federal government estimates that it will finalize this process and make the carbon market operational by 2030, placing Brazil among 55 countries and 44 subnational jurisdictions that have already created carbon pricing initiatives. According to the World Bank, the world has a total of 80 pricing instruments, including emissions trading systems and carbon taxes, which together generated US$$102.2 billion in 2024, covering 28% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
For Brazil, the SBCE represents both a climate policy instrument for achieving the commitments contained in our Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and a driver of development and mobilization of financial flows. The Ministry of Finance expects that, by 2040, the country will have a 5.8% increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a result of the SBCE, with a 21% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from regulated sectors.
COP30 was fundamental in driving the integration of global carbon markets, implementing Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Additionally, the Brazilian government launched, in Belém, the Open Coalition of Regulated Carbon Markets, a collaborative and voluntary initiative for the integration and harmonization of regulated markets, stimulating the exchange of experiences in carbon market operating mechanisms. The coalition was endorsed by 18 countries, including major economies: China, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Norway, New Zealand, Mexico, and Chile. One of its objectives is to create a common standard that can connect different carbon credit trading systems already in operation. By leading the proposal, Brazil gains even more relevance in this global discussion and prepares the ground for the operation of the SBCE itself, aiming to integrate it into a global system that functions with liquidity, predictability, and transparency for all involved.
The business sector has been actively contributing to this issue. Since 2016, the Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development (CEBDS) has been leading this agenda in favor of a regulated carbon market, carrying out articulations and technical and political dialogue between the business sector and the federal government and Congress in the design of regulation with climate integrity. We understand that carbon pricing via the market has proven effective in internalizing emission costs and stimulating investments in low-carbon technologies.
Furthermore, international efforts to harmonize carbon markets and national taxonomies are vectors for directing capital flows and foreign investment towards sustainable actions in Brazil, which should benefit green businesses and further enhance decarbonization agendas. This converges with the advancement of Sectoral Coalitions for Decarbonization in four strategic sectors: Transport, Energy, Agriculture, and Essential Minerals. These coalitions, resulting from a request by the COP30 Presidency and coordinated by CEBDS, have mobilized approximately 270 organizations from the public and private sectors and contribute to concrete sectoral plans for emission reduction.
The system of cap and trade Carbon trading has proven cost-effective in driving the decarbonization transition of productive agents – this has been demonstrated in countries and jurisdictions that already have active trading systems. The Brazilian government sees the carbon market as part of a long-term agenda for the Brazilian economy, with a strong component of neo-industrialization on sustainable bases and income redistribution. For companies, it is also a strategic opportunity to reach a new level of innovation, governance, integrity, and international competitiveness.
* Marina Grossi is president of CEBDS (Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development), an organization with 28 years of experience and 120 large associated companies, Special Envoy of the COP30 Presidency for the Business Sector
