Disentangling the State of Climate Protocols

Cory Levinson argues that carbon market protocols remain fractured, and that the Carbon Data Open Protocol (CDOP) is currently the data standards initiative with the most industry traction. The article says the earlier CAD Trust meta-registry approach, launched in late 2022 by IETA and The World Bank with Chia Network as blockchain partner, did little to support durable carbon removal offtake agreements and saw slow adoption among legacy registries. CDOP instead focuses on harmonizing data schemas and vocabularies without hosting project or transaction data, which the article presents as avoiding becoming another intermediary. In October 2025, ISO initiated a working group to develop a Data Model for Carbon Credit Markets, with CDOP and CAD Trust as nominated experts.