"Different instruments, the same tune" is a common refrain about music. In today's carbon markets and climate policies, a similar principle for emissions information is emerging. Emissions measurement systems need not be identical, but what they measure—and what those measurements imply—must be understood consistently across systems, frameworks, and jurisdictions. Only then can information be collected once and used many times. That may sound simple. In practice, however, achieving compatibility in emissions information across different systems, frameworks, and jurisdictions is challenging.
Monitoring, Reporting, Verification, and Accreditation (MRVA) already underpin many climate policies, from greenhouse gas inventories and climate commitments to emissions trading systems and carbon taxes. Increasingly, similar emissions information is requested for multiple purposes, such as product carbon footprints or supply-chain reporting, Article 6 cooperation, corporate disclosures, and trade-related climate measures. As the number of use cases grows, so do the reporting requirements. Companies can receive multiple requests to submit similar information, often under slightly different methodologies, reporting formats, and verification rules. Governments face similar challenges when domestic MRVA systems interact with international frameworks and emerging carbon market requirements.
The result? Duplicated reporting, repeated verification exercises, additional administrative costs, and greater uncertainty for businesses, often without a corresponding improvement in environmental integrity.
Compatibility without uniformity
This is why compatibility between measurement systems is important. Compatibility does not mean convergence toward a single system. Complete harmonization is neither realistic nor necessary. After all, the measurement of emissions reduction starts with a domestic audience in mind, and the need to make systems comparable has emerged only recently.
Countries have different institutional arrangements, policy priorities, economic structures, and implementation capacities. It is difficult – and perhaps undesirable in many cases – to expect every jurisdiction to adopt identical MRVA systems. The goal should be compatibility and mutual recognition. Different systems can produce information that is sufficiently comparable, credible, and trusted for a particular purpose, even when the underlying rules are not identical. The focus shifts from identical rules to comparable outcomes.
With a degree of compatibility across systems, emissions information can be easily reused, recognized, and trusted beyond its original purpose – enabling broader MRV applicability and unlocking interoperability.
Systems enable compatibility; institutions build trust
A recent workshop on MRVA in Wuhan, China, co-hosted by the World Bank Group’s Partnership for Market Implementation’s (PMI), explored what greater compatibility would look like in practice. At the workshop, co-led by the China Ministry of Ecology and Environment, more than 150 participants from 15 PMI member and partner countries unpacked the minimum data and methodological foundations needed to make emissions information comparable across systems. The China Carbon Market Conference in which the workshop took place provided a timely backdrop for this conversation on the importance of stronger MRVA systems for increasingly interconnected carbon markets.
Countries may adopt different rules and institutional arrangements, but a degree of alignment around core accounting principles, activity data, emissions factors, and verification approaches can make it easier for information to be understood and reused across different applications. Importantly, instead of a single platform or methodology, compatibility requires that information generated under different systems can be exchanged, understood, and trusted for the intended purpose.
Important reminders emerged during the discussion on digital infrastructure. Better data management systems, digital reporting platforms, and information exchange mechanisms can help reduce reporting burdens, improve transparency, and make emissions information easier to share across frameworks, but technology alone is not enough, said participants. What creates trust are institutions, governance arrangements, clear responsibilities, independent verification, and credible accreditation systems. Interoperability is also easiest when built into data architecture from the outset rather than retrofitted, participants noted.
The overlooked “A” in MRVA
This brought renewed attention to the often-overlooked "A" in MRVA. While discussions frequently focus on monitoring, reporting, and verification, accreditation can be critical in establishing confidence in the competence and independence of verifiers. Verification only works when users trust the verifier, and trust in the verifier depends upon accreditation, competence, governance, and oversight. Accreditation is a fundamental building block of mutual recognition.
Taken together, these discussions show that improving compatibility is about creating sufficient confidence that emissions information generated under one system can be relied upon in another.
International initiatives are recognizing the importance of compatibility and mutual recognition. The Second High-Level Meeting of the Open Coalition on Compliance Carbon Markets adopted a work plan that includes a dedicated workstream on MRVA and interoperability. The Coalition’s support for cooperation on MRVA systems, carbon accounting methodologies, and longer-term interoperability while respecting different national circumstances reflects the growing recognition that compatibility, mutual recognition, and interoperability are increasingly vital as emissions information is used across more jurisdictions, markets, and policy applications.
Playing in tune, not in unison
The future of MRVA is unlikely to be defined by a single global framework. In the same way that a recognizable tune needs not rely on a single instrument, success will depend on whether emissions information can be collected once and confidently used and accepted for multiple purposes.
Achieving this vision requires stronger compatibility across systems, mechanisms that build greater trust in verified information, and continued investment in the institutions, accreditation arrangements, and digital infrastructure that make mutual recognition possible.
Rather than simply collect more emissions data, let’s ensure that data can work harder, travel further, and create more shared value.
Giovanni (Gianni) Ruta is Manager of the Climate Analytics, Policy and Regulations Unit in the World Bank Group's Climate Department, where he leads global work on climate policy, analytics, and implementation support. An environmental economist with over two decades of international experience, he has worked extensively on climate change, sustainable development, natural resource management, and environmental policy across Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He has led major World Bank programs and analytical work on climate resilience, ecosystem restoration, land degradation, nature-based solutions, and carbon markets, helping countries translate global environmental commitments into practical development outcomes.
