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Carbon Market Watch proposes a comprehensive overhaul of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to ensure it delivers net atmospheric benefits rather than acting as a zero-sum offsetting tool. Key recommendations include tightening additionality testing through 'negative lists' for ineligible technologies, shortening crediting periods, and integrating national E+ and E- policies into baseline assessments. The document also advocates for strengthened civil society participation via new communication channels and a formal grievance mechanism. Furthermore, it calls for increased transparency from Designated National Authorities regarding sustainable development, stricter eligibility and conflict-of-interest rules for the CDM Executive Board, and a shift in the payment structure for Designated Operational Entities to ensure auditor independence.

Carbon Market Watch argues that international carbon markets must be supplementary to domestic action and governed by strict eligibility, accounting, and integrity rules to avoid the failures of previous mechanisms like the CDM and EU ETS. The organization recommends excluding REDD-plus and agriculture from carbon markets, implementing a 'negative list' of ineligible project types, and establishing a UN-led standard-setting body to prevent double-counting and ensure net atmospheric benefits.

The document examines how energy market conditions, specifically supply and pricing, influence the ability of Viet Nam to attract high-quality foreign direct investment (FDI) to support its economic development goals.

Carbon Market Watch argues that the EU's commitment to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2030 is undermined by a lack of transparency. Specifically, the organization warns that a surplus of 4-6.5 billion emission permits could reduce effective reductions to 17%-26%, and vague accounting for land-use removals could further lower the target by up to 5%.

The Nyéléni Declaration defines agroecology not as a set of technologies, but as a way of life and a political tool for food sovereignty. It rejects industrial food systems and 'false solutions' like climate-smart agriculture, advocating instead for local food systems based on ecological principles, collective rights to land and seeds, and the leadership of women and youth.

The research estimates that 27–34% of woodfuel harvested in the tropics was unsustainable in 2009, contributing 1.0–1.2 Gt CO2e per year to global emissions. It identifies approximately 275 million people living in depletion 'hotspots' primarily in South Asia and East Africa and suggests that the deployment of 100 million improved stoves could reduce these emissions by 11–17%.

The SEI Initiative on Climate Finance focuses on enhancing the delivery and effectiveness of climate finance for developing countries. It addresses four primary areas: defining and evaluating effectiveness to ensure long-term social and economic change; reforming the fragmented global finance architecture to reduce transaction costs; analyzing the role and viability of private finance in adaptation and energy transitions; and operationalizing the concept of 'intolerable risks' to better address loss and damage.

Friends of the Earth International and its signatories critique the Lima Conference for producing weak pre-2020 mitigation pledges and failing to secure binding commitments on finance, adaptation, and loss and damage. The statement asserts that the outcome shifts responsibility to the Global South, protects polluting corporations, and risks expanding carbon markets at the expense of land rights. It calls for a systemic transformation away from fossil fuels toward community-controlled renewable energy and agro-ecological solutions.

The document argues that while the EU's 2030 target of at least 40% domestic greenhouse gas reductions is a positive step, it may conflict with plans to link carbon markets. The author warns that linking with external emissions trading schemes could introduce 'foreign' allowances that dilute domestic targets, especially given the existing oversupply of over 2 billion allowances in the EU market. To effectively participate in a future global carbon market, the document suggests the EU must scale up its ambition to at least 55% and permanently resolve the surplus of allowances from the pre-2020 period.

The document emphasizes that robust accounting rules and quality criteria are essential for the integrity of future carbon markets to avoid double counting and ensure net atmospheric benefits. It advocates for consistency across different mechanisms, including those for international aviation (ICAO), and warns against including land-use activities like REDD-plus in carbon markets due to risks of leakage and impermanence.

Carbon Market Watch asserts that international carbon markets require high ambition and demand to function effectively. Drawing on the Kyoto Protocol experience where weak targets in Russia and Ukraine created 'hot air' credits that undermined emissions trading, the author advocates for eligibility criteria based on stringent targets and the principle of supplementarity, where market units only supplement domestic ambition.

The document opposes using carbon markets to promote climate-smart agriculture, citing the risk of impermanence in soil and forest carbon sequestration compared to permanent fossil fuel emissions. It highlights that land use accounts for 24% of global emissions and suggests that finance for these activities should be mobilized through non-market mechanisms like Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) to avoid compromising food security and adaptation.

Carbon Market Watch argues that previous market-based mechanisms, such as the CDM and EU ETS, failed due to oversupply and poor environmental integrity. To prevent these failures in a post-2020 regime, the organization recommends strict eligibility rules based on national ambition, the exclusion of REDD-plus and agriculture from carbon markets, and the implementation of discounting to ensure net atmospheric benefits. It further calls for a UN-led standard-setting body, a robust institutional safeguard system to protect human rights, and a share of proceeds from all traded units to be allocated to the Adaptation Fund.

The document argues that the CDM, as a pure offsetting mechanism, often fails to deliver real emission reductions and lacks sufficient social safeguards. It proposes a fundamental overhaul of the CDM's modalities and procedures, focusing on achieving net atmospheric benefits, strengthening additionality testing, shortening crediting periods, and enhancing civil society participation and grievance mechanisms. It also calls for greater transparency from Designated National Authorities (DNAs), stricter eligibility and conduct rules for the CDM Executive Board, and the introduction of liability rules for Designated Operational Entities (DOEs) to prevent conflicts of interest.

Carbon Market Watch argues that the draft review of Joint Implementation (JI) guidelines requires critical improvements to prevent the issuance of non-additional credits. The organization advocates for stronger oversight by the Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee (JISC), the mandatory reassessment of existing projects, the termination of crediting periods by 2020, and the cessation of retroactive crediting to protect the integrity of climate targets.

The document critiques the process of 'financialization of nature,' which it describes as the reduction of natural elements into exchangeable financial instruments. It argues that pricing biodiversity is a prerequisite for this process, leading to the creation of 'natural capital' and market-based mechanisms like biodiversity banks and green bonds. The author contends that these tools, particularly those based on 'offsetting,' allow corporations to continue destructive activities by purchasing credits, thereby bypassing genuine conservation and violating the rights of traditional land defenders. The paper advocates for community-based governance and food sovereignty as alternatives to neoliberal market logic.

The report denounces Anglo American for using its privileged access to governments and the UNFCCC to undermine genuine climate action in favor of 'false solutions' like carbon markets and carbon capture. It highlights the severe social and environmental impacts of the El Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia, including water scarcity and the displacement of indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities. The document argues that corporate capture of international climate negotiations prevents the addressing of systemic causes of climate change and calls for the complete removal of corporate influence from climate policy-making.

The report exposes the dual nature of Anglo American's operations: the severe human rights and environmental impacts of its El Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia, and its strategic lobbying within the UNFCCC and other international bodies to maintain a fossil-fuel-based energy model. It argues that the company promotes 'false solutions'—such as carbon markets and carbon capture and storage (CCS)—to avoid structural changes and continue profiting from pollution. The authors call for the removal of corporate privileged access to climate negotiations and the end of public subsidies for polluting energies.

The document argues that success at COP20 in Lima depends on rich nations delivering climate finance, specifically filling the Green Climate Fund, which has only seen "USD 2.3 billion in pledges" despite a "USD 100 billion a year by 2020" goal. It emphasizes the need for an international accounting framework to prevent "double counting" and ensure that only countries with "stringent targets" can access carbon markets to avoid the "hot air" issues seen under the Kyoto Protocol. The author calls for the accounting framework to be embedded in the new climate treaty separately from the Framework for Various Approaches (FVA) and highlights the need to streamline human rights safeguards for the CDM, REDD+, and Green Climate Fund.

The document critiques the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) mechanism, asserting that it prioritizes private finance and corporate interests over indigenous rights and genuine climate mitigation. Through case studies in Indonesia, Mozambique, and Peru, it demonstrates how REDD projects can exacerbate land conflicts, threaten food security, and fail to achieve carbon reduction goals. The report concludes that REDD is a 'false solution' that allows industrial polluters in the Global North to continue emitting via carbon offsets. It proposes an alternative based on community-led forest management, the resolution of land tenure issues, and a systemic reduction in the consumption of resources by rich countries.