The BRICS Carbon Markets Partnership was adopted at the Kazan summit on 23 October 2024. Twenty-two months later, at the New Delhi summit on 12 September 2026, BRICS leaders said they “look forward to the implementation” of the same memorandum. It has not been implemented. Nothing in the New Delhi Declaration binds any member to anything, and the one element that would have mattered commercially to an Indian credit seller — linkage under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement — is no longer mentioned at all.
What the New Delhi Declaration actually says
Paragraph 109 of the declaration, adopted 12 September 2026, reads in relevant part:
…we support promoting cooperation in the field of carbon markets, with a specific focus on capacity building and exchange of experiences and look forward to the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding on the BRICS Carbon Markets Partnership as a cooperative approach to support members in their climate strategies, including in complementing mitigation efforts and mobilizing needed resources.
The same paragraph highlights “the potential of” the BRICS Climate Research Platform and the BRICS Laboratory for Trade, Climate Change and Sustainable Development, and appreciates knowledge sharing through the Dialogue on Aligning Carbon Markets with Adaptation Goals. Those are the verbs the text uses, and on this subject the verbs are the story.
On carbon border measures, paragraph 108 is unchanged in substance from previous years:
We oppose unilateral, punitive, discriminatory and protectionist measures that are not in line with international law, such as carbon border adjustment mechanisms, and express concern that such measures undermine efforts by countries, specifically the developing countries, aimed at addressing the adverse impacts of climate change, increasing adaptive capacity and resilience.
This is a position, not an instrument. It creates no exemption from the EU CBAM, which entered its definitive phase in January 2026, and no exemption from the UK’s. An Indian exporter’s CBAM exposure on 13 September 2026 is exactly what it was on 11 September.
What changed between Kazan and New Delhi
Paragraph 85 of the Kazan Declaration, 23 October 2024:
We welcome the adoption of the MoU on the BRICS Carbon Markets Partnership as a platform dedicated to sharing knowledge, experiences and case studies of developing carbon markets and discussing the potential intra-BRICS cooperation on carbon markets to exchange views on potential cooperation under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement among the BRICS countries.
| Kazan, 23 Oct 2024, para 85 | New Delhi, 12 Sep 2026, para 109 | |
|---|---|---|
| MoU | “welcome the adoption of the MoU” | “look forward to the implementation of the MoU” |
| Article 6 | named explicitly | absent from the entire document |
| Framing | intra-BRICS cooperation, Article 6 views | capacity building, exchange of experiences, adaptation |
Two differences are worth naming.
First, the verb. In 2024 the MoU was adopted. In 2026 leaders look forward to its implementation. Adoption to implementation has taken twenty-two months and two chairmanships — Brazil’s in 2025 and India’s in 2026 — and is not complete.
Second, Article 6 is gone. The 2024 text named Article 6 of the Paris Agreement explicitly as something BRICS members would exchange views on. The phrase “Article 6” does not appear anywhere in the 2026 New Delhi Declaration. What replaced it is “capacity building and exchange of experiences”, plus alignment with adaptation goals. Capacity building is not a market. Article 6 is the mechanism under which one country’s credits can count toward another’s NDC, and it is the only part of this agenda that would create demand for Indian carbon credits from outside India.
What this means if you are selling Indian credits
It means the BRICS route is not a route yet, and on the evidence of the declaration text it moved further away rather than closer this year.
- No BRICS mechanism exists for transferring carbon credits between member states. The MoU establishes a platform for sharing knowledge and case studies.
- No implementation timetable is published. The declaration gives no date, no milestone and no responsible body beyond the Contact Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development.
- The MoU’s own text is not public. We have found no published version on any BRICS chairmanship site, on mea.gov.in, or in the Indian gazette, as of 15 September 2026. Searched and not found; if a reader has a copy, we will publish the correction.
- CBAM liability is unaffected. Paragraph 108 restates an objection that has been in every BRICS declaration for several years and has changed no importing country’s law.
A note on the September 2024 signing date
Several outlets and aggregators report the MoU as signed in September 2024 at a Moscow climate forum. We do not repeat that date, because no primary source we can find supports it. The Russian chairmanship’s own record of the August 2024 Moscow forum has Minister Reshetnikov saying the parties “agreed to continue working on the memorandum of understanding in order to sign it and launch the partnership by the BRICS Summit in Kazan” — that is, drafted with an intention to sign, not signed. The adoption is recorded at Kazan in October 2024. Count secondary sources for confidence about what happened, never about when.
What would change this reading
We will revisit if any of the following happens, and we are watching for each:
- The MoU text is published by any BRICS member government.
- An implementation plan, work programme or dated milestone is announced by the Contact Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development.
- Article 6 language returns in a BRICS ministerial or leaders’ text.
- Any bilateral Article 6 agreement is signed between India and another BRICS member — which would matter far more than the partnership itself, and would not need it.
Sources
All primary. No secondary source is relied on for any claim above. Every quotation on this page was read against the source document on 15 September 2026, not carried forward from an earlier reading.
- BRICS New Delhi Declaration, 18th BRICS Summit, 12 September 2026 — Prime Minister’s Office, pmindia.gov.in. Paragraphs 108–109.
- XVI BRICS Summit Kazan Declaration, 23 October 2024 — Department of International Relations and Cooperation, Republic of South Africa. Paragraph 85.
- “BRICS Countries Approve Memorandum on Carbon Markets Partnership”, brics-russia2024.ru, Russian BRICS chairmanship, August 2024.
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