President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed Executive Order 127, directing the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to create a national carbon market policy framework. The order covers international and voluntary carbon credit projects, with rules to ensure the same emissions cuts are not counted twice. It also sets up the Philippine National Carbon Registry to track internationally transferred mitigation outcomes. The framework will define project eligibility, authorization criteria for international transfers, and agency coordination. It is meant to align with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and support the country's climate targets. Investors get clearer direction, but the actual details on verification, baselines, and registry operations still need to be written. For carbon market watchers, EO 127 is the first step. The harder part is implementation: building a registry that works, setting credible additionality tests, and avoiding double counting across voluntary and compliance markets.
