Singapore’s Carbon Credit Trading Hub: an overview

This review investigates Singapore’s emergence as a carbon credit trading hub and its evolving role in shaping Southeast Asia’s climate finance architecture. Drawing on a narrative-integrative methodology, the paper synthesizes grey literature, government policy, institutional reports, and verified academic sources to critically assess how Singapore constructs and governs its carbon market platform. The analysis is structured around three interrelated questions: (1) how Singapore builds its institutional and financial infrastructure to mediate carbon flows; (2) how public and private actors coordinate to establish authority and credibility within a hybrid governance model; and (3) how the platform-based architecture produces both opportunities and asymmetries across the ASEAN region. Conceptually, the paper engages with theories of platform capitalism, soft market regulation, and green financial intermediation to interpret Singapore’s infrastructural strategy. The findings suggest that Singapore’s market-oriented approach—anchored by mechanisms such as Climate Impact X, Article 6 bilateral agreements, and green financial instruments—functions not only as a facilitator of decarbonization but also as a gatekeeper of regional participation. While this model enables cross-border interoperability and enhances access to global climate finance, it also introduces risks of institutional dependency and normative concentration. The paper concludes by identifying gaps in current scholarship and proposing a future research agenda focused on comparative carbon governance, platform power, and the political economy of Article 6 implementation in Asia.