490 companies across 7 energy-intensive sectors in India are about to face mandatory carbon obligations. This isn’t a pilot program. It’s a national-scale compliance market launching in months.
India’s Power Minister Manohar Lal announced at Prakriti 2026 in New Delhi that formal carbon credit trading will begin within four months. The government has launched a dedicated carbon market portal for registration, verification, and trading — the full infrastructure stack, not just a policy announcement.
What’s Actually Being Built
The Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS) was first notified in 2023, and the groundwork has been laid methodically since. Nine methodologies have been approved. Over 40 projects are already registered, spanning biogas, green hydrogen, and forestry. The framework covers both a compliance market (those 490 obligated entities in sectors like steel, cement, and power) and a voluntary market running alongside it.
The emphasis on MRV — monitoring, reporting, and verification — is notable. India isn’t just creating a place to trade credits. It’s building the measurement infrastructure that gives those credits credibility. That’s the part most carbon markets get wrong first and fix later. India is trying to get it right from the start.
The Global Context
Zoom out, and the geopolitical picture is striking. The United States is actively retreating from climate policy. The EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) is tightening. China’s national ETS covers power generation and is expanding to other sectors.
India just joined the serious table. Three of the world’s four largest economies — EU, China, and now India — are building or operating carbon compliance markets. The US is the outlier, and increasingly the odd one out.
Why the Voluntary Track Matters
The dual structure — compliance plus voluntary — is a smart design choice. The compliance market creates guaranteed demand from obligated entities. The voluntary market creates space for newer credit types, including carbon dioxide removal.
Right now, CDR credits (biochar, enhanced weathering, DAC) live almost entirely in the voluntary market globally. India building a voluntary track from day one means there’s a potential pathway for CDR projects to enter the Indian market without waiting for compliance methodology approvals, which can take years.
What to Watch
Four months is aggressive. The question isn’t whether India will have a carbon market — the infrastructure is clearly being built — but whether trading volumes will be meaningful in year one. The 40+ registered projects need to generate verified credits, the 490 obligated entities need to understand their obligations, and the portal needs to actually work.
But the direction is unmistakable. India is building one of the world’s most comprehensive carbon market frameworks from scratch, and doing it faster than most observers expected. For anyone building CDR projects with global ambitions, the Indian market just became impossible to ignore.