Liberia Advances National Carbon Market Policy Development

The government has moved closer to turning one of its greatest natural assets--its forests and other carbon-rich ecosystems--into a potential source of international climate finance. But as President Joseph Nyuma Boakai received the national consolidated and validated National Carbon Market Policy on Tuesday, September 1, the question confronting the government is no longer simply whether the country should participate in the global carbon economy. It is whether Liberia can build a carbon market that generates national wealth, protects forests and attracts investment without repeating the land, resource-governance and community-rights controversies that have already surrounded carbon trading in the country. The policy, presented at the Executive Mansion by Carbon Markets Authority CEO Jeanine Cooper, Forestry Development Authority Managing Director Rudolph Merab and Environmental Protection Agency Executive Director Dr. Emmanuel K. Urey Yarkpawolo, represents a major attempt to put rules around an emerging and potentially lucrative market. Follow us on WhatsApp | LinkedIn for the latest headlines A carbon credit generally represents a verified reduction or removal of one metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent. Countries, companies and other institutions can purchase such credits to meet climate commitments. For Liberia, the attraction is obvious. The country has approximately 6.6 million hectares of forest, covering about 69 percent of its landmass, according to UNDP, while its forests are managed and depended upon by Indigenous peoples, local communities and smallholder forest communities. The World Bank has likewise identified significant potential for carbon markets and climate-finance benefit sharing as part of Liberia's development strategy. Yet the country's recent experience shows that carbon is not merely an environmental commodity. It is also about land, ownership, money, power and the future of communities that depend on forests for survival. The government's carbon-market ambitions did not begin with the Boakai administration. For years, the country has participated in international efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation under REDD+. The World Bank has previously identified gaps in Liberia's framework, including uncertainty over carbon rights, benefit-sharing and the rules governing international sales of emission reductions. At the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, then-President George Manneh Weah highlighted the forests as a climate asset and called for an African carbon-credit trading mechanism. The World Bank subsequently hosted a Forest and Climate Resilience Forum in Liberia in 2023, where carbon markets, forestry, land tenure, benefit sharing and climate finance were among the central issues. Liberia subsequently intensified its preparations. In September 2024, the Government signed a Letter of Engagement with the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, aimed at strengthening Liberia's participation in the global carbon market. In August 2025, the Government convened a National Carbon Dialogue in Ganta, Nimba County, bringing stakeholders together to discuss carbon ownership, benefit sharing, institutional arrangements, market mechanisms, grievance redress and financial management. Then, in October 2025, President Boakai issued Executive Order No. 155, establishing the Carbon Markets Authority and providing for a National Carbon Registry and Liberia Carbon Investment Fund. The latest policy therefore represents the culmination of several years of efforts to move Liberia from being a country with enormous forest-carbon potential to one with an institutional framework capable of participating in the market. The Blue Carbon controversy remains the warning sign The nation's carbon-market history also contains a major cautionary episode. In 2023, the previous government entered into a controversial arrangement with Dubai-based Blue Carbon, involving approximately 2.5 million