As India accelerates its climate commitments and explores domestic carbon markets, critical questions arise:

• How will land be accessed for carbon projects?

• What rights and roles will local communities and forest-dwelling peoples have in decision-making?

• How will benefits be distributed and who ensures accountability?

India is not alone in grappling with these questions. Across the Global South, countries are developing national frameworks for carbon trading and climate finance that shape how rights, revenues, and responsibilities are distributed. International mechanisms like the UNFCCC and voluntary carbon standards often defer to national laws making it essential that those laws embed principles of carbon justice: equity, transparency, participation, and accountability.

In the recent years, civil society organisations have analyzed legislation and policies from different countries, and developed a practical toolkit to support lawmakers, civil society, and communities. This session uses insights from that work to explore what India can learn from the successes, challenges, and innovations in other countries of the Global South.

Session Objectives

• Share how countries in the Global South are designing national policies to ensure carbon markets are fair and inclusive.

• Reflect on the current direction of India’s carbon market policy and identify risks and opportunities.

• Co-create strategies Indian stakeholders can adopt to embed community rights, participation, consent, benefit-sharing and data governance protocols into national and subnational policy.