Supply & Demand

Compliance carbon markets as supply & demand.

Caps and baselines against verified emissions across the six largest compliance systems, 2019–2024, in native currency. Supply and demand mean something different in each market, so every panel states its own definitions and flags each figure as reported, estimated or indicative.

Read this first. Each market's demand series was checked against its primary registry in June 2026. EU and UK verified-emissions series were corrected to the EEA/ETC-CM and gov.uk records; Australia's pre-2023 balance is marked indicative because the Safeguard baseline was not binding before the July 2023 reform. Every source link below resolves.

Compliance markets

EU, CA-QC, WA, UK, AU, NZ

~1662 Mt

Covered emissions, latest

summed across the six systems

EUR/USD/GBP/AUD/NZD

Native currencies

prices shown unconverted

2019-2024

Coverage

Washington from 2023

EU ETS California-Quebec WCI Washington Cap-and-Invest UK ETS Australia Safeguard New Zealand ETS

EUR · EUA

EU ETS

Phase 4 (2021-2030) · EU27 member states + Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein

Supply (cap / baseline)Demand (emissions / surrenders)

Year	Supply	Demand	Balance	Price	Status
2019	1467	1476	-9	€25.20	reported
2020	1350	1253	+97	€24.70	reported
2021	1539	1355	+184	€53.70	reported
2022	1505	1313	+192	€80.70	reported
2023	1454	1096	+358	€83.70	reported
2024	1343	1019	+324	€62.00	estimated

Supply — Annual cap net of Market Stability Reserve (MSR) intake — allowances actually entering the market.

Demand — Verified emissions from stationary installations (current scope, excl. UK), reported to the EU Registry.

Price — Annual average of the ICE EUA front-December futures.

Demand reconciled to the EEA / ETC-CM verified-emissions series (current scope): 1476 (2019), 1253 (2020), 1355 (2021), 1313 (2022), 1095.9 (2023). 2024 is provisional at roughly -7% vs 2023.
UK installations excluded from 2021 after Brexit; the series is held to current EU scope throughout for consistency.

EU ETS Data Viewer — European Environment Agency EU Carbon Price — Ember Climate EU ETS Union Registry — European Commission EU ETS Directive & Fit for 55 Reform EEX Environmental Markets — European Energy Exchange

USD · CCA

California-Quebec WCI

California (USA) and Quebec (Canada) — Western Climate Initiative (WCI) joint market

Supply (cap / baseline)Demand (emissions / surrenders)

Year	Supply	Demand	Balance	Price	Status
2019	390	354	+36	$17.16	reported
2020	384	315	+69	$16.68	reported
2021	370	349	+21	$17.71	reported
2022	358	341	+17	$26.80	reported
2023	346	326	+20	$37.85	reported
2024	334	315	+19	$42.00	estimated

Supply — Combined California + Quebec annual allowance budget (caps), incl. consignment.

Demand — Combined CA + QC covered emissions reported under each jurisdiction's mandatory reporting rule.

Price — Annual volume-weighted joint-auction current-vintage settlement price (USD).

Caps verified against ICAP/CARB: CA 4th-period cap declines ~13.4 Mt/yr from ~358 Mt to 200.5 Mt by 2030; QC cap 55.3 Mt (2021) to 44.1 Mt (2030).
Combined covered-emissions (demand) are close estimates built from CARB MRR plus Quebec data; treat the annual split as indicative rather than a single audited figure.

CARB Cap-and-Trade Program Data — California Air Resources Board CARB GHG Mandatory Reporting — California Covered Emissions Quebec Carbon Market — MELCCFP Joint Quarterly Auction Reports — CARB/MDDELCC CARB Compliance Instrument Tracking — Allowance Tracking System

USD · WCA

Washington Cap-and-Invest

Washington State, USA

Supply (cap / baseline)Demand (emissions / surrenders)

Year	Supply	Demand	Balance	Price	Status
2023	63.3	62.5	+0.8	$52.78	reported
2024	60.9	60	+0.9	$42.00	estimated

Supply — Annual WCA cap (allowance budget).

Demand — Covered-entity emissions under the Climate Commitment Act.

Price — Quarterly auction current-vintage settlement price (USD), annual average.

Cap verified: 63 MtCO2e in 2023 (93% of 2015-19 covered average), declining ~7%/yr to 2030. Floor $22.20, ceiling $81.47 in 2023.
Program launched 1 Jan 2023 — only two years of history exist.

Washington Dept. of Ecology — Climate Commitment Act Washington Climate Commitment Act (SB 5126)WA Ecology — GHG Reporting Summary Publication

GBP · UKA

UK ETS

Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales) + Northern Ireland for aviation

Supply (cap / baseline)Demand (emissions / surrenders)

Year	Supply	Demand	Balance	Price	Status
2021	156.1	108	+48.1	£47.80	reported
2022	149.7	110	+39.7	£74.30	reported
2023	143.8	96.8	+47	£46.00	reported
2024	138	90	+48	£36.00	estimated

Supply — Gross annual cap — UKAs available (auctioned + free allocation). Issuance can run below this.

Demand — Verified emissions from UK ETS operators (stationary installations + aviation).

Price — ICE UKA futures, annual average (GBP).

Demand corrected to the gov.uk verified-emissions record: ~108 Mt (2021), ~110 Mt (2022), 96.8 Mt (2023, a 12.5% drop). 2024 is provisional below 2023.
Supply here is the gross cap. Allowances actually placed ran lower — about 116 Mt of UKAs in 2023 against 96.8 Mt of demand — so the market has been in structural surplus every year since launch.

Participating in the UK ETS — UK Government Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) — UK Government GOV.UK — UK ETS Document Index

AUD · ACCU

Australia Safeguard

Australia (Commonwealth jurisdiction)

Supply (cap / baseline)Demand (emissions / surrenders)

Year	Supply	Demand	Balance	Price	Status
2020	145	139	+6	A$14.75	indicative
2021	141	142	-1	A$16.60	indicative
2022	137	149	-12	A$35.30	indicative
2023	133	145	-12	A$28.85	reported
2024	129	138	-9	A$32.50	estimated

Supply — Aggregate Safeguard baseline across covered facilities (the legislated emissions limit).

Demand — Covered (in-scope) Scope-1 emissions at Safeguard facilities.

Price — Spot Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU) price, annual average (AUD).

Reformed mechanism commenced 1 July 2023; baselines decline 4.9%/yr only from 2023-24. In 2023-24 there were 219 covered facilities, ~31% of national emissions (~137 Mt).
Before the reform the aggregate baseline was generally NOT binding, so the 2020-2022 supply/demand balance is indicative only and should not be read as genuine scarcity. A real ACCU compliance-demand signal emerges from 2023-24 onward.

Clean Energy Regulator — Safeguard Mechanism Clean Energy Regulator — Australian Carbon Credit Unit Scheme Clean Energy Regulator — Carbon Markets Safeguard Mechanism (Crediting) Amendment Act 2023 Clean Energy Regulator — Home

NZD · NZU

New Zealand ETS

New Zealand

Supply (cap / baseline)Demand (emissions / surrenders)

Year	Supply	Demand	Balance	Price	Status
2019	26	40	-14	NZ$25.00	reported
2020	28	39	-11	NZ$32.00	reported
2021	24	41	-17	NZ$43.00	reported
2022	20	43	-23	NZ$65.00	reported
2023	18	41	-23	NZ$57.00	reported
2024	16	40	-24	NZ$48.00	estimated

Supply — NZUs entering the market via government auction plus industrial free allocation (excl. forestry issuance).

Demand — Non-forestry surrenders — energy, transport, industry and waste.

Price — Secondary-market NZU spot, annual average (NZD).

NZU auctions failed to clear through 2023 on the price-floor/settings dispute, then cleared again in 2024.
Forestry removals are excluded from the supply line shown; large net forestry issuance sits outside this non-forestry balance.

New Zealand Ministry for the Environment — NZ ETS Data Environmental Protection Authority — NZ ETS MfE — Climate Change Programme (auctions, data, policy)NZX — New Zealand Exchange Stats NZ — Environment Statistics

Methodology, sources & what changed

Supply and demand are each defined per market (caps/baselines vs verified emissions or surrenders); definitions differ and are stated on every panel. Native-currency prices. All figures primary-source attributed; where a clean single registry figure does not exist, the cell is flagged estimated or indicative rather than presented as audited.

Status flags:

reported Official verified figure from a regulatory filing.estimated Modelled from the enacted trajectory; official figure pending (typically 2024).indicative Shown for context but not a binding market signal (e.g. Australia pre-reform).

Corrections applied to the uploaded dataset:

EU ETS demand: 2023 set to 1096 and 2024 to ~1019 to match the EEA verified-emissions series.
UK ETS demand: corrected down ~25-30 Mt/yr to the gov.uk record (108 / 110 / 96.8 / ~90).
UK ETS supply: relabelled as the gross cap, with a note that UKAs issued run below it (structural surplus).
Australia: 2020-2022 flagged indicative; supply defined as the aggregate baseline, demand as covered emissions, with the 1 July 2023 reform noted.
All dead source URLs from earlier versions replaced; every link now resolves.

Download the model (.xlsx) Raw data (JSON) VCM supply & demand

Scope: Six compliance carbon markets, 2019-2024 (Washington 2023-2024) · verified & generated 2026-06-26 · free, no account needed