Kazakhstan can now transfer carbon credits across borders under United Nations rules, following the enactment of amendments to its Environmental Code. The changes establish how the country will operate under Articles 6.2 and 6.4 of the Paris Agreement, the mechanisms that govern international trade in emission reductions. Article 6.2 covers bilateral cooperation between countries, and Article 6.4 sets up a centralised crediting mechanism supervised by the United Nations.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed the package into law this week, after both houses of parliament approved it in late June. The amendments insert a new article into the 2021 Environmental Code and extend references to Article 6 throughout the roughly 300-page text.
The law recalculates the national carbon balance as total emissions, less carbon absorption, plus any credits transferred abroad under Article 6. Under the amendments, Kazakhstan can transfer mitigation outcomes for use towards other countries’ national contributions, on terms the law sets out. This accounting change determines how transferred units are tracked against Kazakhstan’s own target.
Two pieces of market infrastructure sit at the heart of the framework: a national carbon registry and an Article 6 buffer account. The buffer account holds credits that cannot move internationally and cancels them if a project reverses, protecting the integrity of units already issued.
“A buffer account is an account established in an international registry under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement that contains carbon credits intended to offset potential losses in the mitigation benefits of greenhouse gas absorption projects,” the document states.
Projects will undergo an eligibility assessment before approval, and a set share of the credits they generate is reserved for Kazakhstan’s national target. The framework adds Kazakhstan to a growing number of jurisdictions building the legal machinery for Article 6 trade, from registries and buffer pools to the rules that decide which projects qualify.