By Sri Varshith Kumar Reddy E

By August 2026, a carbon credit economy for Jammu and Kashmir stopped being a policy dream and became something concrete: a national system with prices, deadlines and a registry, waiting for the valley to plug in. 

The difference between having the infrastructure and using it is where fortunes get made or wasted, and right now Jammu and Kashmir stands closer to the second outcome than the first.

India’s Carbon Credit Trading Scheme, notified under the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Act of 2022, has moved from blueprint to operation. Roughly 500 industrial units, spanning aluminium, cement, chlor-alkali, pulp and paper, petroleum refining, petrochemicals and textiles, now hold binding emissions-intensity targets for the current two fiscal years, measured against a 2023-24 baseline. 

The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission finalized rules for exchange transactions in February. The Indian Carbon Market portal, run by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency with the Grid Controller of India managing the registry, opened for business in March. Buyers and sellers expect the first Carbon Credit Certificates to change hands on the power exchanges between July and October, with early prices landing somewhere between $10 and $15 a tonne. 

A separate offset track already covers forestry and agriculture, with credits dating back to January 2025. 

This is real plumbing, built and running.

Estimates of the global voluntary carbon market vary widely, from........

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