A ground-up read of the voluntary carbon market — supply and the balance to 2036, demand to 2050, and the price ladder. Built from about 347,000 issuance and 487,000 retirement records across ten registries.
Seven findings define the voluntary carbon market in 2026 — each quantified, from a ground-up read of every registry:
The market has split in two. A ~1,273 Mt avoidance overhang — nearly all avoidance, about eight years of cover — sits alongside a scarce, re-rating removal segment with almost no inventory behind it. CORSIA and Article 6.2 demand, for units carrying corresponding adjustments, could yet absorb part of that overhang; a separate outlook follows.
Demand is flat today but rebuilds severalfold. Retirements have held near 157 Mt (~USD 1 billion) for four years. On the SBTi V2 rulebook, base-case demand reaches ~290 Mt by 2036 and ~1,190 Mt by 2050 — though the pre-2035 OER step is optional and not removal-only, so adoption is the swing factor.
No aggregate supply problem — a removals problem. New supply rebuilds to ~235 Mt by 2036 but stays avoidance-heavy; removal demand of ~120 Mt meets only ~23 Mt of supply — a ~97 Mt deficit with no inventory buffer.
Durable removal is the tightest constraint. About 2 Mt exists all-time against durable demand of ~48 Mt by 2036 — a demand that builds later than earlier thought. Even so, hyperscaler offtake plus early net-zero buyers outrun buildable supply of ~11 Mt.
Nature removal is the only near-term buffer — and a thin one. Supply of ~12 Mt/yr meets demand climbing toward ~72 Mt by 2036 — the buffer holds a couple of years, then tips into deficit sooner this decade.
There is no single carbon price. Credits trade across a ~100x range — from ~$0.80 for wind to ~$130 for biochar, with engineered removal higher still. Commodity avoidance softens, nature removal re-rates up, and region adds a premium — North America dearest, Asia ex-China cheapest.
Move on removals early — on both sides. Buyers forward-contract high-integrity removals while the cost of insuring against scarcity is low; developers build and deliver; intermediaries move from brokering avoidance to structuring removals.
The Synthesis Report expands each of these with the exhibits, the forecasts and the price ladder; the full 68-page outlook carries the derivation.
In the Synthesis Report
A sample from inside
There is no aggregate supply problem — there is a removals problem. New supply rebuilds to ~235 Mt by 2036, but removal demand of ~120 Mt meets only ~23 Mt of removal supply: a ~97 Mt deficit with no inventory behind it. Durable removal is tighter still — about 2 Mt exists all-time against durable demand of ~48 Mt by 2036.
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On the SBTi V2 rulebook, base-case demand rebuilds to ~290 Mt by 2036 and ~1,190 Mt by 2050, and removals climb from ~11% of demand to ~41% and ~82%. Avoidance does not disappear — its volume keeps rising even as its share gives way. But removal supply stays thin, so the market clears through a widening separation between the two.
The recurring finding
The headline oversupply is an aggregate phenomenon that masks a removals deficit. It is the removals balance, not the cushioned aggregate, that decides whether a net-zero claim holds — which is why the measured response is to forward-contract high-integrity removals early, while the cost of insuring against the scarcity is still low.
The Synthesis gives you the shape of the market. The full 68-page outlook gives you the machinery behind every number — the project-type build-up, ten sectoral demand profiles, the SBTi V2 adoption model, price by type and region, the year-by-year balance, and benchmarking — enough to build a procurement plan, a development thesis or a trading view on.
VCM 2026: Era of Integrity · The VCM Series · CDR Series · Carbon Markets
The complete 68-page report, with buyer- and developer-specific cuts, is available on request — supply and the balance to 2036, demand to 2050, the price ladder and premiums, and a procurement playbook for the removals era.