Switzerland's Article 6 Model in Malawi: Metered Cooking, a Mandated Buyer and the Price of Integrity

At a Glance · Switzerland and Malawi

Switzerland is a good example for other sovereign buyers to follow. It has created demand by law, through an obligation on fuel importers that KliK meets as a single purchasing pool, alongside direct contracting by the Confederation, and it has applied that demand to a credit built for integrity, since the Malawi programme credits only metered cooking against a charcoal baseline measured in households, with a non-renewable biomass fraction of 0.30 that the two governments set themselves and deductions for leakage and sampling error, such that the outcome Switzerland authorised on 5 October 2026 is one that a host government, a buyer and a reviewer can each check.

The framework that funds KliK ends in 2030, and the Federal Council has decided that Swiss climate policy after 2030 will rest on an emissions trading system for buildings and transport from 2031, which would replace the fuel importers' offset obligation, with price caps and a 2040 target of minus 75%, while about a third of reductions may still be achieved abroad, so the question for host countries is who will hold the obligation to buy ITMOs after 2030 and at what price, which the draft CO2 Act now has to settle.

Pricing at the KliK level should become the norm for cookstove credits. Our Article 6 research puts early Swiss contracts at about US$23.5 per tonne, and KliK reports an average cost of CHF 27 per ITMO contracted for 2025 to 2030, while our Market Watch data show cookstove offers falling from US$9.5 per tonne in 2021 to US$6.0 in 2025 and US$6.5 in the first half of 2026, with offers carrying a letter of authorisation at US$11.3 and CCP-labelled offers at US$12.5, accordingly the market already pays more for authorisation and labels, and metered methodologies give buyers a reason to pay the KliK level for measured results, since the low prices of recent years rewarded volume over accuracy.

ATEC, an Australian developer, will distribute 76,000 IoT-enabled induction stoves to grid-connected households in Lilongwe and Blantyre that cook mainly on charcoal, with 45% of stoves planned for each district and 10% for comparable districts as the programme scales, and the KliK Foundation will buy the resulting Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (ITMOs) under the implementing agreement Malawi and Switzerland signed on 14 November 2022.^1,2

The deal has been built in stages, with KliK signing the purchase agreement in February 2025, Malawi listing the programme in its initial report under Article 6.2 in August 2025, EBP Schweiz completing the validation on 2 March 2026, the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) signing its authorisation statement on 5 October 2026 and the programme being presented in Lilongwe on 8 October 2026 as one of four Malawi and Switzerland mitigation activities.^1,3,4,5

Table 1 · Terms of the Swiss authorisation of the Malawi induction cooking programme. Source: FOEN, Authorisation statement 5074, 5 October 2026.

Households buy the stoves at a subsidised price and receive Cook-to-Earn payments by mobile money once their metered weekly use passes set thresholds, up to a lifetime cap reached over about one to two years, and the design document states that the programme is not viable without carbon revenue, since surveyed households would pay only US$2 to US$12 for an improved stove, while induction at 92% thermal efficiency costs less than half as much to cook with as charcoal at ESCOM's average tariff of 97.12 kwacha per kWh.²

Cookstove credits lost much of their standing over the past three years because older improved-stove projects estimated usage from surveys and applied high default values for the fraction of wood that is non-renewable, which studies showed could over-state reductions several times over, and the UNFCCC technical expert review of Malawi's initial report found significant inconsistencies in how its other cookstove approach, a Gold Standard programme under the older AMS-II.G method, set its baseline and applied the fraction of non-renewable biomass (fNRB).⁶

The Malawi programme applies the Gold Standard Methodology for Metered and Measured Energy Cooking Devices, version 1.2, with one change drawn from the Clean Cooking Alliance's CLEAR methodology, under which the baseline is the charcoal that households were measured to burn in kitchen performance tests, re-measured over time, in place of a back-calculation from controlled cooking tests, and project kitchen tests each quarter measure any charcoal households continue to burn, which is then counted as a project emission.^2,7

Table 2 · Baseline and emission reduction parameters of the Malawi programme. Sources: Mitigation Activity Design Document, version 14.2, sections 5.2 to 5.6, and ex-ante emission reduction workbook, as published with FOEN authorisation 5074.

The fNRB of 0.30 is the same default Switzerland applied to its first cookstove ITMOs from Ghana, and it is well below the values that earlier voluntary projects in the region used, which, together with metering and the deductions, means the credit is calculated conservatively at each step where cookstove credits have been criticised.^2,8

The validator, EBP Schweiz, raised and closed 42 clarification and corrective action requests and set three conditions for the first verification, that the formal letter of authorisation be shown, that a study supporting the cap on the charcoal emission factor, then under peer review, be published, and that Malawi's updated NDC be checked for whether it lists electric cooking, and it found the programme additional on a benchmark analysis at programme level and on household payback periods above one year.³ Our comparison of cookstove methodologies under the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism is set out in the PACM cookstove analysis.

Our Market Watch tracks cookstove credit prices, Article 6 authorisations and host-country readiness across more than 100 countries.

Most sovereign buyers fund Article 6 purchases from a government budget, whereas Switzerland places the obligation on its fuel importers under the CO2 Act, requiring them to offset a share of the emissions from the fuel they sell that rises from 25% in 2025 to 50% in 2030, of which at least 12% must be met in Switzerland, so that up to 38% may come from abroad in 2030, with a penalty of CHF 160 per tonne for any shortfall and a pass-through to drivers capped at 5 centimes per litre.⁹

Table 3 · The Swiss Article 6 buying model. Sources: FOEN; KliK Foundation, annual report 2023; Climate Action Tracker, June 2026; swissinfo.ch, October 2026.

The structure gives KliK demand set by law to 2030, and its pipeline reflects it, with sixteen implementing agreements and an MoU with Brazil, 22 purchase agreements signed in 2025 alone and the first ITMOs from Africa issued in the same year, net of a contribution cancelled for overall mitigation in global emissions, and FOEN publishes the authorisation, design document and validation report for each activity, as it has for Malawi.^1,8,10,11

KliK is not the only Swiss buyer, since the Confederation also contracts ITMOs directly, with the federal administration buying ITMOs from Ghana and Vanuatu through UNDP in November 2022 to compensate its own emissions, and the government issuing a tender in December 2025 for up to 15 Article 6 projects under a public-private partnership, so the Confederation already acts as a second buyer alongside the importers' pool, and it needs to, since by October 2026 deliveries stood at 0.36% of the 34 million tonnes Switzerland plans to source abroad by 2030.¹²

The obligation that funds KliK is set in the CO2 Act only to 2030, and on 12 September 2025 the Federal Council decided the main lines of the policy that will replace it, under which Switzerland would introduce an emissions trading system for buildings and transport, raise no new or higher levies and reduce emissions by at least 75% by 2040, with the CO2 price in the new system limited by caps of CHF 120 per tonne for heating fuels and CHF 20 per tonne for transport fuels, which correspond to the current CO2 levy and to the importers' surcharge limit of 5 centimes per litre, and with the current instruments to end from 2031.^13,14

Reporting on the decision states that the new system would replace the fuel importers' offset obligation, the CO2 levy and probably the target agreements with industry, so the channel through which Swiss motorists have paid for ITMOs since international offsetting opened in 2022 would close, while the Federal Council has kept the targets of minus 65% by 2035 and minus 75% by 2040, with Alliance Sud estimating that about a third of reductions, or up to 13 million tonnes in 2040, would still be achieved abroad.^13,14,15,16

Table 4 · Switzerland's Article 6 demand under the current and planned frameworks. Sources: Federal Council, 12 September 2025; Switzerland's second NDC; WOZ; Alliance Sud.

The drafts of the post-2030 CO2 Act and a framework law for CO2 transport and storage were due by the end of June 2026, and for host countries the open questions are who will hold the obligation to buy ITMOs once the importer obligation ends, whether the Confederation, which already contracts directly, will take on that role or a single pool will again buy for obligated companies, and how a price cap of CHF 20 per tonne on transport fuels will fund purchases abroad, since ITMO volumes after 2030 depend on the answers, and activities authorised now, such as Malawi's with a crediting period ending in 2030, will need a buyer under the new framework to continue.^13,14

KliK publishes its average cost per certificate, which its 2023 annual report puts at CHF 35 per tonne for international certificates contracted for 2022 to 2024 and CHF 27 per tonne for 2025 to 2030, the latter on 5.89 million tonnes contracted for CHF 158 million across all activity types, and at any recent exchange rate that is more than twice the price at which authorised cookstove credits are offered in the voluntary market.¹⁷

Our Article 6 buyer research puts Swiss contract prices at about US$23.5 per tonne in its early agreements, rising to about US$37 to US$40 in its later pipeline, against about US$25.6 for Singapore's nature-based procurement and US$5 to US$15 for voluntary credits without authorisation, so that the gap of about US$25 to US$35 a tonne is what sovereign buyers pay for a corresponding adjustment and the integrity that comes with it.¹⁸

Climate Decode Market Watch price data, drawn from about 305,000 offer records for 2021 to June 2026, show average cookstove offers falling from US$9.5 per tonne in 2021 and US$10.5 in 2022 to US$6.0 in 2025 and US$6.5 in the first half of 2026, and a June 2026 snapshot averaging US$4.2, with offers ranging from US$1.3 to US$12.5.¹⁹

Table 5 · Sovereign Article 6 prices and cookstove credit prices by category. Sources: Climate Decode Article 6 Buyer-Side Readiness, July 2026; KliK Foundation, annual report 2023, page 27; Climate Decode Market Watch, VCM price database and 2026 Market Outlook; offer levels with the cheapest 10% removed and China excluded from the trend series; deals typically transact 10% to 20% lower.

The data show that the market already pays about three times as much for cookstove credits carrying a letter of authorisation or a CCP label, and our base-case forecast holds generic African cookstove credits at about US$4 to US$5 a tonne to 2036, so the market is dividing into a low tier of unlabelled volume and a higher tier of authorised and labelled credits.¹⁹

The KliK level, about US$23.5 a tonne in the early Swiss contracts, should become the norm for cookstove credits bought by sovereign and corporate buyers alike, since metered methodologies such as the one applied in Malawi measure reductions household by household, deduct for leakage, sampling error and residual charcoal, and require a stove to be delivered, used and maintained over the crediting period, whereas the prices of US$4 to US$6 that prevailed for unlabelled credits rewarded volume over accuracy, and our Market Watch supply data show why the distinction is needed, with about 138 million cookstove credits still unretired across the registries, of which only about 17 million are CORSIA-eligible with a host letter of authorisation, and about 12 million come from Malawi, mostly issued under AMS-II.G, TPDDTEC, VMR0006 and VM0050, which estimate use from surveys and field tests and not from metering.^19,20

Our Article 6 buyer research rates eleven government and quasi-government buyers on seven pillars, mandate, acquisition vehicle and budget, bilateral network, transfer record, registry and accounting, demand target and integrity framework, and Switzerland is the only buyer to score full marks, ahead of Singapore and Japan, while Norway, Sweden and South Korea are committed but have yet to receive transfers.¹⁸

M MandateV Vehicle and budgetN NetworkT TransfersR RegistryD Demand targetI Integrity· bar height = score 0 to 3

Switzerland

Compliance obligation

21/21

M

V

N

T

R

D

I

Demand to 2030

About 20 Mt

30 to 34 Mt planned

Delivered

Thailand 2023, Ghana 2025

Singapore

Carbon tax, 5% offset

19/21

M

V

N

T

R

D

I

Demand to 2030

About 25 Mt

plus tax offsets

Contracted

2.175 Mt, none delivered

Japan

Joint Crediting Mechanism

19/21

M

V

N

T

R

D

I

Demand to 2030

About 100 Mt

200 Mt by 2040

Small transfers

~1% of target, ~98% Mongolia

Norway

Government budget

16/21

M

V

N

T

R

D

I

Demand to 2030

Up to 15 Mt

results-based

Contracted

agreements signed, none transferred

South Korea

NDC gap

14/21

M

V

N

T

R

D

I

Demand to 2030

About 37.5 Mt

second-largest target

Authorised

Cambodia e-mobility, not issued

Sweden

Supplementary measures

14/21

M

V

N

T

R

D

I

Demand to 2030

Low single-digit Mt

SEK 1.5 bn programme

None

Ghana project cancelled July 2026

Sovereign demand adds up to about 200 million tonnes to 2030, and airlines draw on the same pool under CORSIA, since CORSIA-eligible units must carry a letter of authorisation and a corresponding adjustment, with our CORSIA model putting the Phase 1 obligation for 2024 to 2026 at 203 million tonnes, of which about 90 million tonnes is expected to be cancelled by 31 January 2028, against about 47 million tonnes of eligible units in existence today, whereas realised Article 6.2 transfers to sovereign buyers stood at about 65,000 tonnes by May 2026, so the market is limited by how quickly host countries authorise and adjust, and buyers are competing for the few activities that have both.¹⁸

Demand for authorised credits against supply and delivery

Japan

100 Mt

CORSIA Phase 1, expected cancellation

of a 203 Mt obligation for 2024–26

90 Mt

CORSIA-eligible units available today

47.3 Mt

South Korea

37.5 Mt

Singapore

25 Mt

Switzerland

20 Mt

Norway

15 Mt

Realised Article 6.2 transfers, May 2026

0.065 Mt (about 65,000 t)

Sovereign buyers: stated demand to 2030, about 200 Mt in total. CORSIA: Climate Decode central case, Phase 1 settling by 31 January 2028. CORSIA-eligible units must carry a letter of authorisation and a corresponding adjustment, so airlines and sovereign buyers draw on the same supply.

In that competition the Swiss model gives a host country what the other buyers do not yet offer together, demand set by law, a single counterparty that pays on verified delivery, a published authorisation and validation for each activity and a baseline agreed with the host government, and our Market Watch assessment of host-country readiness places Malawi in the proven group, with first authorisation in 2026 and partners in Switzerland and Singapore, so for other sovereign buyers this combination is the model to follow in turning a bilateral agreement into a pipeline, as we also argued in our analysis of Canada's Article 6 framework.²⁰

1. Entry into force of the authorisation and the first issuance, since the ex-ante calculation expects about 0.36 million ITMOs a year from 2027 once all 76,000 stoves are in use.
2. The first verification, which must confirm the letter of authorisation, the published study supporting the charcoal emission factor and Malawi's updated NDC.
3. The draft post-2030 CO2 Act, which will decide who buys ITMOs for Switzerland after 2030 and how purchases are funded under the price caps.
4. Malawi's grid, since 76,000 induction stoves add evening load on ESCOM's constrained network.
5. The critique, with Climate Action Tracker judging Switzerland's use of Article 6 not responsible because its domestic target is not aligned with 1.5°C and its rules do not require benefit-sharing with host countries.

Accordingly, the programme should be judged on issuance, while the Swiss model already offers host countries, developers and other sovereign buyers a framework to follow, provided the post-2030 law keeps a buyer in place.^2,11

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Notes

Sources

Volumes are the authorised maximum and ex-ante estimates; no ITMOs have yet been issued under the Malawi programme. Market Watch prices are offer levels; KliK figures are average costs across activity types, and prices for individual contracts are not disclosed.