Compliance markets
What the first ITMO transfers teach us
August 2025 · AGCF Team
The first Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes under Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement did not come from where many expected. Not from vast forestry programmes or industrial retrofits, but from electric buses on the streets of Bangkok — emission reductions generated by a Thai e-mobility programme and transferred to Switzerland, which counts them toward its national climate target. Similar bilateral arrangements have followed, including cookstove programmes in Ghana and a widening network of agreements signed by Switzerland, Singapore, Japan and others with host countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Three lessons from the pioneers
First: sovereign demand is real. These transactions involve governments purchasing verified outcomes to meet binding national commitments — a fundamentally different demand base from corporate volunteers, with different duration and creditworthiness.
Second: community-scale technology travels well. E-mobility and clean cooking led the way precisely because their outcomes are measurable, near-term and rich in co-benefits — cleaner urban air, better household health — which host governments value alongside the carbon itself.
Third: authorisation is the hard part. Every transfer requires the host country to apply a corresponding adjustment, giving up the claim to those reductions. Governments make that choice carefully, which is why the pipeline of authorised projects grows far more slowly than the pipeline of willing buyers.
Our perspective
It is no coincidence that AGCF’s technology-based pipeline — e-mobility programmes and improved cookstoves across Southeast Asia and Africa — mirrors the categories that pioneered Article 6. These are the project types sovereign buyers have already shown they will pay for.