Uzbekistan emerges as key supplier of aviation carbon credits as global shortage looms

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — Uzbekistan has been recognised as one of the world's leading suppliers of approved aviation carbon credits, the head of the global airline industry's main trade body said on Sunday, as the sector faces a mounting shortfall in the specialised offsets required for international compliance.

Willie Walsh, Director General of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), singled out Uzbekistan by name during his address at the organisation's 82nd Annual General Meeting in Rio de Janeiro, praising the country for successfully navigating a complex administrative process that only nine other nations have completed.

"Uzbekistan is one of the top countries [making Eligible Emissions Units available]," Walsh said.

The credits Walsh referred to are known as Eligible Emissions Units, or EEUs — a tightly regulated category of verified carbon offset that airlines must use to compensate for emissions under the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA).

Adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in 2016, CORSIA requires airlines on international routes to offset any growth in their carbon emissions above 2019 baseline levels. Not every carbon credit qualifies: for an offset to become an EEU, the national government of the country where the underlying climate project is located must formally authorise its use for CORSIA compliance — a bureaucratic step that most governments have yet to complete.

Methane Reduction at Industrial Scale

Uzbekistan's contribution to the EEU market is anchored in high-impact industrial abatement. The country has authorised credits generated through a scheme targeting the modernisation of the Hududgaz gas distribution network, catalogued under the international Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) registry managed by Verra as project VCS 4531.

The project detects and repairs methane leaks across Uzbekistan's aging natural gas infrastructure — preventing what the industry terms fugitive emissions, the unintentional release of gas into the atmosphere. Because methane is a greenhouse gas roughly 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year horizon, sealing such leaks yields a disproportionately large and measurable climate benefit. The project has registered 1,568,083 credits to date.

A Fractured Global Framework

Walsh warned the broader international system remains severely underprepared. Airlines are expected to require between 170 million and 236 million EEUs for CORSIA's first compliance period, which runs through 2026. Only 10 countries — including Guyana, Cambodia, Laos, several African states and Uzbekistan — have successfully authorised supply, producing a combined total of just 38 million units, less than a quarter of projected demand. Guyana leads with nearly 25 million.

Walsh attributed the shortfall to a failure of inter-governmental coordination rather than a lack of available climate projects.

"CORSIA was ground-breaking — the first global sectoral agreement to manage carbon emissions. Governments created it and the industry supported it wholeheartedly," Walsh said. "But the parts of government responsible for aviation and CORSIA were not in sync with those responsible for the Paris Agreement."

With an estimated $4–5 billion in potential climate finance at stake, Walsh argued the fix requires no new policy architecture.

"The solution is simply aligning internal government processes," he said.

He reserved pointed criticism for the European Union, accusing the bloc of undermining the globally agreed CORSIA framework by promoting its own regional Emissions Trading System — which covers flights within and departing Europe — at the expense of international cohesion. Walsh warned that continued government inaction risked eroding the aviation industry's commitment to CORSIA itself.

For Uzbekistan, the recognition from IATA's leadership positions the country as a potential model for other nations still working through their own authorisation processes — and as an early beneficiary of what Walsh described as a multi-billion-dollar emerging market in aviation climate finance.