Carbon Credit

A carbon credit is a tradable instrument representing one tonne of CO2 equivalent reduced or removed, used to offset emissions elsewhere. Credibility depends on additionality (the reduction would not have happened anyway), permanence, and accurate measurement, all of which have drawn scrutiny in voluntary markets. In shipping, credits surface in offsetting schemes and in the Paris Article 6 cooperation mechanism, though the IMO Net-Zero Framework is built around in-sector pricing rather than open-ended offsets.