The compliance carbon picture entering 2026 is one of incremental expansion rather than dramatic shifts. The World Bank's State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2025 records 80 carbon taxes and emissions trading systems in operation — a net increase of five over the prior 12 months — with Brazil, India, and Türkiye reaching key implementation milestones, and Colombia and Indonesia expanding existing coverage [1].
The major systems
EU ETS. The EEA's Trends and Projections in the EU-ETS 2025 report documents continued tightening of the cap under the Fit-for-55 trajectory, with the Market Stability Reserve continuing to absorb surplus allowances [2]. The EU ETS-2 (covering road transport and buildings) is on track for 2027 implementation, with national registries and reporting infrastructure in build now.
China national ETS. China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment published the 2025 Progress Report on the National Carbon Market in September 2025, confirming the long-anticipated expansion beyond power generation to include cement, steel, and aluminium sectors, lifting covered emissions toward ~60% of the national total [3][4]. The intensity-benchmarking design — distinct from the EU's absolute cap — continues to limit price formation but the scope expansion is structurally significant.
RGGI and WCI. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and the Western Climate Initiative (California–Québec linked) remain the longest-running North American compliance systems. Washington State's Cap-and-Invest, linked to WCI, continues to mature.
Emerging systems. Brazil's regulated carbon market (SBCE) was established by Law 15.042/2024 and is moving through phased implementation; India's Carbon Credit Trading Scheme is in early operational phase; Türkiye's ETS pilot is underway. I4CE's Global Carbon Accounts 2025 tracks the revenue side: globally, carbon pricing generated record revenues in 2024, providing a domestic-resource-mobilisation case for further expansion [5].
What this means in practice
More than a quarter of global emissions now sit inside a priced compliance system. For multinationals, this translates into a growing matrix of jurisdiction-specific compliance obligations — facility-level monitoring plans, free-allocation calculations, surrender deadlines, and CBAM exposure for EU importers from 2026 onward. The operational complexity is no longer manageable on spreadsheets for any company with assets across two or more ETSs.
Where CAS fits in
CAS supports compliance-obligated entities on the operational layer of ETS participation: (a) monitoring plans and emission reports aligned to EU ETS MRR, California MRR, or jurisdictional equivalents; (b) free-allocation and benchmarking calculations including CBAM default-value strategy; (c) ETS-2 readiness for buildings and road-transport upstream entities; and (d) for host countries designing new schemes, MRV and registry architecture aligned to ICAP good-practice guidance. We do not act as a verifier under any ETS.
Sources
[1] World Bank, 'State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2025'.
[2] EEA, 'Trends and projections in the EU-ETS in 2025', December 2025.
[3] China Ministry of Ecology and Environment, 'Progress Report of China's National Carbon Market (2025)', September 2025.
[4] dena/GIZ, 'Comparative Analysis of EU and Chinese ETS'.
[5] I4CE, 'Global Carbon Accounts 2025'.