The Democratic Republic of Congo is about to give itself a full legal regime for carbon markets. On August 28, the Council of Ministers in Kinshasa adopted, with amendments, a draft ordonnance-loi establishing the juridical framework of the carbon market, the fourth Congolese text on the subject since 2023. For project developers and buyers looking at one of the world’s largest forest-carbon reserves, the headline is not the law itself but what sits at its center: a sovereign national carbon registry, designed to record mitigation outcomes and the units transferred internationally under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
What the Adopted Text Actually Does
The draft, presented by the Minister of Environment, Sustainable Development and New Climate Economy, Marie Nyange Ndambo, has three stated objectives, according to Congolese outlet BETO, which reviewed the text. First, to recognize, regulate and supervise at national level the voluntary carbon market activities carried out in the country. Second, to establish the institutional architecture of the national carbon market. Third, to create a National Carbon Registry, presented as the sovereign and authentic national system for recording mitigation outcomes and mitigation outcomes transferred internationally.
That third objective is the operative one for international market participants. Transferred mitigation outcomes are the language of Article 6, where corresponding adjustments exist to prevent the same tonne from being counted twice. A sovereign registry is the infrastructure that lets a host country prove which tonnes left its national accounts, and under what authorization. According to Quantum Commodity Intelligence, which reported on the framework in June, the legal code also gives Congolese ministers the power to set carbon prices for projects yielding ITMOs, and the remit to draw up “white” and “red” lists, a lever that would let Kinshasa steer which project types can export credits and which cannot.
The Fourth Floor of a Building Erected in 2023
The new text does not start from zero, and that is precisely the debate around it. In March 2023, ordonnance-loi No. 23/007 amended the 2011 environmental protection law and inserted an article 17 bis creating a Carbon Market Regulatory Authority, known as ARMCA, with a mission to organize the carbon market on national territory and promote the participation of public and private actors and local communities. Decree No. 23/22 of June 14, 2023 then constituted ARMCA as a public administrative body headquartered in Kinshasa. An interministerial order of September 15, 2023 fixed how the state’s share of credit-sale profits is split: according to Rainforest Foundation UK, 50 percent to the Treasury, 15 percent to provincial governments, 10 percent to territorial administration and 25 percent to the National Environment Fund.
Operationalization has been slower than legislation. In November 2023, the authority existed on paper but had no elaborated procedures and no designated leadership. By October 2025 it had a director general, Guy Nsimba, who publicly framed its mission as giving form and transparency to the carbon market process, with local communities “first” in line for restitution of their rights.
A Contested Path to Adoption
The route the text took matters for anyone pricing regulatory risk. On June 26, the national coordination of the Groupe de travail climat REDD+ rénové, the country’s main environmental civil society platform, read out a position note with seven recommendations. The first was to suspend examination of the draft in its current form to allow a deep legal, institutional and technical review. The third was to consolidate the existing framework rather than create parallel mechanisms that could generate conflicts of competence. The credibility of the Congolese carbon market, the note argued, rests not on the multiplication of texts but on the coherence of the legal architecture, the stability of governance and the trust of international partners.
The government chose the alternative reading, defended in early July by environmental governance expert Augustin Nge Okwe: adopt the bill after enriching it, rather than suspend the process, because “carbon sovereignty requires a strong law”. The procedural sequence was brisk. The text went to the government’s general secretariat on July 2 for integration into an enabling law; on July 24 the National Assembly declared the enabling bill admissible after what the national press agency described as heated debates and sent it to committee; on August 28 the Council of Ministers adopted the ordonnance-loi under Article 129 of the Constitution, which lets parliament authorize the government to legislate by ordinance. It is the second time in three years the DRC has legislated on carbon through this fast-track route.
The political pressure behind the speed is explicit. “The carbon market is a window of opportunity limited in time,” the ministry said in July. “The DRC must act without delay to transform its natural potential into national wealth for the benefit of our population.”
Why Buyers and Developers Should Care Now
For project developers, the decree-law converts a fluid situation into a gated one. Activities will need to fit the institutional architecture the law creates, and credits destined for international transfer will live or die by their registration in the national registry. Developers with REDD+, cookstove or other projects in the DRC should expect documentation, authorization and benefit-sharing requirements to consolidate around ARMCA and the registry rather than around ad hoc provincial arrangements.
For buyers, the registry is a double-edged development. On one side, a sovereign record of mitigation outcomes and corresponding adjustments is exactly what Article 6-grade procurement requires, and it addresses the double-counting risk that discounts credits from countries without tracking infrastructure. On the other side, ministerial price-setting powers and white and red lists introduce a policy layer between supply and the market: eligibility and price floors can change by administrative decision.
The integrity context is documented. Rainforest Foundation UK’s October 2025 report The Great Green Rush described a rapid expansion of carbon projects in the DRC without adequate safeguards, flagging failures of free, prior and informed consent. Civil society’s June intervention shows that the governance debate inside the country is live, and that the law’s implementing decrees will be watched as closely as the law itself.
What to Watch
Three markers will show whether the fourth law succeeds where construction has lagged. First, the final text of the ordonnance-loi once signed by the president: the amendments made on August 28 will define how much power ARMCA and the registry actually hold over existing projects. Second, the implementing measures for the National Carbon Registry, including how it interoperates with Article 6 reporting and any bilateral agreements the DRC signs. Third, whether the white and red lists and ministerial pricing powers reported by Quantum Commodity Intelligence appear in the final text, because that is where the state’s grip on credit exports would become binding.
