By: Gustian Farrow, Head of StoneX TV • Content Channels
StoneX Vice President of Carbon Markets Nathalie Flores charts the three-decade evolution of global carbon trading, highlighting milestones from Rio ’92 to the Paris Agreement.
“The gathering itself… resulted in three conventions to protect nature”, climate change, biodiversity and desertification. Flores stresses their interdependence: climate affects biodiversity, which in turn influences food security. These treaties created the political architecture for market-based solutions by elevating environmental protection from aspiration to legally binding obligation.
Kyoto “was basically the baseline for what we have today”. Its clean development mechanism (CDM) allowed the private sector to generate tradable credits once projects were validated by national inventories. By pricing carbon, the CDM proved that emissions reductions could be financed at scale while nations continued to develop.
When countries opted not to renew Kyoto, they negotiated “a new treaty, more ambitious”. Finalised at COP 29, the Paris rulebook provides clearer accounting rules and cross-border transfer provisions. Flores calls the outcome “groundbreaking” for emerging compliance markets in Singapore, China and Australia, as well as host nations in Latin America, Asia and Africa ready to monetize natural capital.
Carbon Solutions, launched in 2022, “brings risk management and drives change” notes Flores. By measuring value-chain emissions and sourcing credits, StoneX helps clients label products net-zero and “monetize those carbon credits”. The firm’s circle of hedging, project development, and premium pricing turns climate action into a “win-win” for companies and the planet. As Flores notes, “We put our money into reducing carbon emissions… and we will be able to do that”.
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---- Written by Gus Farrow
--- Expert: Nathalie Flores, StoneX Vice President of Carbon Markets
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