Outside Europe, the global average carbon price is $21 a tonne

Carbon pricing now covers 29% of global emissions and raised $107 billion last year. But if one takes Europe out of the equation, then this picture collapses, and the global average price is $21/tonne ... a level most economists agree is too low to meaningfully redirect investment.

The European figures flatter the global picture. Once they are removed, the average price is at a level most economists agree is too low to change what gets built. That leaves a large share of the world's industrial capacity facing a carbon signal that is present on paper and weak in practice.

Where the public price is weak, the private one has to do more. A buyer that co-finances a supplier's reduction and claims it as Scope 3 is effectively setting its own carbon price for that transaction. Insetting lets that price be shared across the chain and paid at the point of the deal rather than argued about after the fact.