A global carbon asset manager has secured authorisation from Uganda for up to 10 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent from a single cookstove project, covering vintages 2025 to 2030, Carbon Pulse reported on 10 August. The authorisation allows the credits to be transferred under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and used as CORSIA-eligible units. For buyers hunting authorized supply and for developers weighing where to build Article 6 pipelines, this is one of the largest single host-country authorisations seen in Africa’s cookstove sector, and a sign that the region’s Article 6 machinery is moving from framework to volume.
What Uganda Actually Authorized
The approval covers up to 10 million tonnes of CO2e across six vintages, from 2025 through 2030. Two features matter more than the headline number. First, the authorisation enables international transfer under Article 6, which means the credits can carry corresponding adjustments and count toward a buyer country’s NDC or toward CORSIA obligations for airlines. Second, the CORSIA eligibility flag puts the units into a compliance demand pool with a defined buyer base, rather than leaving them dependent on voluntary sentiment.
The identity of the carbon asset manager was not disclosed in the headline reporting. What is clear is the scale: at full volume, 10 million tonnes over six years averages roughly 1.7 million tonnes per year from one project, a size that would have been exceptional in the voluntary market alone and is now being routed through government-to-government grade infrastructure.
The Regulatory Plumbing Behind the LoA
Uganda did not improvise this authorisation. The country ratified the Paris Agreement on 21 September 2016 and submitted its updated NDC in September 2022. More importantly, the National Climate Change (Climate Change Mechanisms) Regulations 2025 give the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) a formal instrument for exactly this kind of approval: the regulations include a standard authorisation template for the international transfer of certified emission reduction units, explicitly referencing the Article 6.2 guidance on cooperative approaches from Decision 2/CMA.3.
That template matters to counterparties. It defines the authorisation number, the project proponent, the approved volume and the terms under which units can leave the country, which is the paper trail buyers and registries need to apply corresponding adjustments. Uganda enters this deal with an established credit base underneath it: one regional analysis counts roughly 250 active carbon projects in the country and more than 33 million credits issued historically, with cookstoves the dominant project type.
Cookstoves Are Becoming Africa’s Article 6 Workhorse
The Uganda approval fits a pattern that has been building for two years. In April 2024, UpEnergy received Tanzania’s first Letter of Authorisation under Article 6 for a project distributing 425,000 locally manufactured fuel-efficient cookstoves, certified under Verra and SD VISta, with South Korea’s Ecoeye among its buyers. In August 2025, Zimbabwe issued an LoA for about 2.86 million Article 6 ITMOs from a cookstove project under its new Statutory Instrument 48 framework, though only 5,000 of those units carried corresponding adjustments at the time. Rwanda’s DelAgua projects were the first cookstove credits to receive Article 6 corresponding adjustment labels from Verra, back in December 2023.
The sector’s weight is structural, not incidental. An International Energy Agency review of Uganda’s energy policies notes that clean cookstoves are the most represented project type in the voluntary carbon markets, accounting for about 15% of the roughly 8,000 projects that have issued credits. What is changing is the wrapper: the same project archetype that spent a decade selling into voluntary offsetting is now being authorised for compliance-grade transfer, at volumes an order of magnitude larger per deal.
What It Means for Buyers and Developers
For buyers, the practical consequence is a deeper pool of authorized African supply with CORSIA eligibility attached. That is relevant pricing information: authorized units with corresponding adjustments have consistently commanded a premium over unlabeled voluntary credits, and a 10 million tonne authorization from a single project gives offtakers something rare in this market, scale with a government signature behind it. The due diligence burden does not disappear. Cookstove crediting has faced sustained methodological scrutiny over baseline and usage-rate assumptions, and buyers should expect vintage-by-vintage verification quality to vary even inside an authorised envelope.
For developers, Uganda’s move signals that the 2025 regulations are operational, not decorative. A host country that issues large LoAs against a standard legal template is a jurisdiction where Article 6 project preparation can proceed with less sovereign risk than markets still drafting their rules. Expect competition among asset managers and project sponsors for the next wave of Ugandan authorisations, and expect other East African governments to read this as a prompt to accelerate their own pipelines.
What to Watch
Three checkpoints will show whether this authorisation converts into market reality. First, the first transfer of units against the LoA: an authorisation is capacity, and only recorded transfers with corresponding adjustments confirm the plumbing works end to end. Second, which registry and methodology the credits sit under, since that determines how the units interact with CORSIA’s eligibility lists and buyer integrity screens. Third, whether Uganda follows with further authorisations at similar scale, which would confirm a deliberate national strategy rather than a one-off approval.
The voluntary market built the cookstove credit. Article 6 is now industrialising it, and Uganda has just shown what that looks like at ten million tonnes at a time.
