The Natural Climate Solutions Alliance’s COP30 Policy Asks

On the occasion of COP30, the NCS Alliance has three key recommendations for the Parties of the Paris Agreement:   

Unlock finance for nature-based solutions through carbon markets:    

• Support countries in developing the enabling policy conditions that would attract and scale private investment in natural climate solutions. This aligns with the Paris Agreement’s recognition of the complementary role of private finance in achieving Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).    

• Central to this approach are high-integrity carbon markets – markets built on transparency, robust accounting, and verified climate, biodiversity, and social outcomes. High-integrity markets ensure that credits represent real, additional, and permanent emissions reductions or removals. Carbon markets uniquely mobilize large-scale private capital aligned with measurable climate goals and complement grants or public funds.  

Ensure equity and inclusion in carbon markets for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities  

• Create enabling conditions for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities to participate in, shape and benefit from carbon markets on their own terms.  

• This includes prioritizing direct, flexible, and rights-based finance, ensuring best practice Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) is conducted, supporting community-led design and implementation, and establishing robust, locally-driven safeguards and decision-making processes.   

Include nature as a climate solution in Article 6.4:  

Noting that as current decisions by the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body (SBM) threaten to exclude all land-based activities (forests, blue carbon, soil carbon, etc.) from the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism (PACM), we recommend that the CMA request the Supervisory Body to:  

• Although the SBM seems to have taken into consideration many concerns presented by stakeholders, the barriers for nature go beyond only the non-permanence standard and will keep resurfacing in the future. Therefore, the CMA should request the SBM to revise all relevant standards and tools to ensure alignment with previous CMA decisions, specifically those addressing non-permanence/reversals, setting the baseline in mechanism methodologies, reversal risk assessment, and addressing leakage in mechanism methodologies, including the Tool Concept Note on the Remediation of Reversals.

• Reform its stakeholder engagement processes to provide adequate time for public consultation, enabling all stakeholders—including experts and Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities—to provide input. Methodological Expert Panel meetings should be fully open and broadcast. Stakeholders need visibility not just of outcomes but of the decision-making process itself.

• For a full overview of our asks of the CMA, read the Open Letter