The article based on the regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive pillars of B.R. Scott's theory, examines the formation of the institutional environment of carbon markets (voluntary and regulated) in the global economy and Russia. The identified contradictions during the formation of carbon market institutions in Russia within the framework of the development of the Paris Agreement are explored. Russian climate legislation has been summarized and structured to understand the practice of functioning of various institutional structures: carbon projects, carbon polygons, exchanges for trading greenhouse gas (GHG) emission quotas, low-carbon goods, accounting and reporting systems and others as a “background” for the start of a voluntary carbon market in the country as the experiment in the Sakhalin region ends. The presented grounds in the form of the results of an experimental study confirm the possibility of creating a climate project.