Japan and Vietnam have formally updated their Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM) agreement to align with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, the international framework governing carbon market cooperation between countries.
Japanese and Vietnamese delegates signing an updated Joint Crediting Mechanism agreement aligned with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, with reforestation and wind turbines representing expanding carbon reduction efforts. AI generated picture.
The updated agreement, signed on 2 May 2026, enables verified credits generated under the JCM to qualify as Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (ITMOs)—the unit of exchange under Article 6's bilateral cooperation rules. The partnership between the two countries runs until 2030 and will automatically extend for a further five years.
Both governments confirmed the mutual recognition of verified reductions and removals under the scheme. 'Both governments mutually recognise that verified reductions or removals from the mitigation projects under the JCM can be used as a part of Japan and Vietnam's Nationally Determined Contributions,' the memorandum states. Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are each country's individual emissions-reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement.
The agreement also addresses double-counting, a central concern in international carbon accounting. 'Neither government uses any mitigation projects registered under the JCM for the purpose of any other international climate mitigation mechanisms to avoid double counting on greenhouse gas emission reductions or removals,' the document adds.
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The update builds on a partnership that began on 2 July 2013, when Japan and Vietnam first signed a JCM agreement. Japan now has active JCM partnerships across multiple countries. In November 2025, it received its first Article 6-aligned JCM credits from a project in Thailand.
Japan's JCM programme supports the country's national emissions-reduction targets: 46% by 2030, 60% by 2035, and 73% by 2040, all measured from 2013 levels.
The updated agreement follows Vietnam's recently finalised regulation on the international trading of carbon credits, which comes into force on 19 May 2026. The final regulation sets stricter caps on the volume of units that can be transferred internationally than earlier drafts had proposed.
Under Article 6 rules, countries participating in cooperative approaches must report the content of their agreements, authorise individual projects, and file an annual report for each project.
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