Brazil Caps Carbon Transfers as Experts Flag Missing Cost Data

Brazil set firm ceilings on how many carbon units it will let leave the country, while panelists warned that most governments still cannot calculate what those units cost them to give up. The UN climate secretariat side event at COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, on Nov. 14, 2026, took no votes. Instead, it paired new Article 6 pipeline data with a preview of PRISM, a secretariat simulator meant to replace guesswork in authorization decisions.

• Brazil caps authorizations at 50 million units for 2026–2030 and 100 million for 2031–2035.
• Cost data is the missing link: A show of hands suggested few countries in the room had abatement cost curves.
• Article 6.2 pipeline grows to 312 activities, 112 bilateral agreements and 413 approved CDM transition requests.
• Secretariat previews PRISM, a browser-based simulator for host countries that collects no user data.
• MSCI says authorization prices appear lower than economic modeling suggests.

The basics: Article 6 of the Paris Agreement lets countries trade emission reductions. When a host country authorizes a transfer, it applies a "corresponding adjustment," subtracting those reductions from its own progress toward its national climate target, known as a nationally determined contribution (NDC). Traded units under Article 6.2 are called ITMOs, or internationally transferred mitigation outcomes.