Nature-based solutions are central to climate change mitigation and adaptation, yet one has to be clear what problem(s) they provide the solution to. Examining this question helps reveal the opportunities and limits of market-based mechanisms as a facilitator of nature-based solutions. By way of a primer, it is necessary to understand the array of nature-based solutions that exist today. Here, a fundamental distinction between nature-based solutions that avoid, store, or remove emissions can and should be drawn. This distinction, in turn, helps reveal both the opportunities and limits of the voluntary carbon market as catalysts of nature-based solutions. Opportunities to expand the protection of a range of ecosystems could lead to significant climate and nature benefits. Yet currently, the unbridled and largely unregulated voluntary carbon market now evidences the inherent limits as a source of financing nature-based solutions. This is largely due to the proliferation of avoided emissions projects, many of which raise concerns from an additionality perspective and can create a number of perverse incentives for conservation. Rather than pitting carbon against nature and weakening both outcomes, this chapter explores how we must distinguish between nature-based solutions focusing on carbon removal and those which conserve and protect existing ecosystems. As part of this, it is necessary to assess the nuanced characteristics of nature-based solution projects to illustrate that while the goals of removing carbon and protecting nature are often interlinked, they are distinct. Consequently, they must be untangled from the perspective of the voluntary carbon market. Doing so offers the opportunity to better protect nature and the climate, through transparent markets to address externalities in each.