The European Union plans to buy 260 million tonnes of high-integrity international carbon credits after 2036, Kurt Vandenberghe, Director-General of the European Commission’s climate action directorate, told the 2026 China Carbon Market Conference in Wuhan on 15 September. It is the first time Brussels has attached a concrete volume to its reopening to international credits, and it landed in the same week that China revealed it is drafting dedicated rules for cross-border carbon trading. For developers, investors and buyers, the demand side and the plumbing of international carbon trade just became visible at the same time.
The EU Puts a Number on Post-2036 Demand
Vandenberghe framed the purchase plan as part of a broader repositioning of the EU ETS from a reduction tool into “an engine of innovation and investment.” He cited the scheme’s track record to make the case: operating since 2005, a 50 percent emissions cut to date, a carbon price of around 55 euros per tonne and roughly 270 billion euros in cumulative revenues.
The international credit commitment sits alongside other elements of the reform framework the Commission presented in July 2026, built around climate, economic and security objectives. Vandenberghe also flagged proposals to extend maritime coverage to smaller vessels, support alternative fuels and gradually bring municipal waste incineration into the system, plus a 100 billion euro solidarity mechanism for lower-income regions and groups.
According to Chinese reporting of the same forum, the EU is expected to pilot the use of international credits from 2031, with full trading from 2036. That sequencing matters: a pilot phase gives both sides of the market five years to build verification, registry and corresponding-adjustment capacity before volume demand arrives.
China Builds the Plumbing for Cross-Border Trading
On the supply and infrastructure side, Zhang Xin, deputy director of China’s National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation, disclosed that the centre is drafting a Cross-Border Carbon Trading Management Measures regulation under the guidance of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. The draft runs to six chapters and 29 articles, is now in the consultation stage, and is intended to become a departmental regulation, giving cross-border trading a formal legal footing for the first time.
The measures sit on top of a legal stack that has been assembled quickly: the Ecological Environment Code, which took effect on 15 August, explicitly provides for carbon trading cooperation, and the State Council’s 2024 opinion on strengthening the national carbon market already made institutional arrangements for cross-border transactions.
The operational architecture is equally concrete. The Beijing Green Exchange will build the cross-border trading platform, the national climate strategy centre will build the cross-border registry, and domestic voluntary trading will be coordinated with cross-border flows under unified supervision and settlement. Zhang also put numbers on the pipeline: as of May this year, 66 countries had signed around 1,082 bilateral or multilateral cooperation agreements, with about 170 mitigation projects in incubation.
His three priorities for international cooperation read like an integrity roadmap: mutual recognition of project data QA/QC, a public database with unified parameters built on MRV mutual recognition, and South-South capacity building in MRV, carbon investment and carbon management.
A Coalition Moves From Launch to Operations
The institutional frame for all of this is the Open Coalition on Compliance Carbon Markets, launched by China, Brazil and the EU at the COP30 summit in Belem in November 2025. At a high-level meeting in Wuhan on 14 September, chaired on the Chinese side by environment minister Huang Runqiu, members adopted the coalition’s work plan and secretariat rules, moving it from launch into implementation. The coalition now counts 11 members and 18 observers, and has backed a 2026-27 work plan centred on MRV systems and high-quality crediting mechanisms.
The wider backdrop supports the momentum narrative. Julia Fraser, the World Bank’s sustainable development director for East Asia and Pacific, told the conference that global carbon pricing revenues exceeded 107 billion dollars in 2025 alone, more than triple the level of a decade ago, and that all large middle-income economies have now implemented or are planning direct carbon pricing instruments.
What This Means for Buyers, Developers and Investors
For project developers, the 260 million tonne figure converts an abstract policy debate into a bankable demand signal. The qualifier “high-integrity” is doing heavy lifting: credits without robust MRV, transparent baselines and corresponding adjustments are unlikely to qualify, which raises the premium on methodological conservatism years before the first EU purchase.
For host countries, China’s cross-border rules offer a template for how a major economy formalises authorisation and registry infrastructure. Expect other governments, particularly in Asia, to study the six-chapter draft as they decide how to regulate exports of mitigation outcomes.
For corporate buyers and investors, the message is about timing. The EU pilot expected from 2031 creates a defined window in which early Article 6 portfolios can be tested against compliance-grade requirements, and the coalition’s work plan suggests interoperability standards will be negotiated multilaterally rather than imposed unilaterally.
What to Watch
Three markers will show whether this week’s announcements harden into market structure. First, the final text of China’s cross-border measures after consultation, particularly the authorisation criteria and the treatment of corresponding adjustments. Second, the design of the EU’s 2031 pilot: which credit types, which registries and which integrity screens it admits. Third, deliverables from the Open Coalition’s 2026-27 work plan, especially any common MRV or data-recognition standard that could become the default interface between national systems.
