The application of fully ceramic microencapsulated (FCM) fuels to light water reactors and small modular reactors are attracting great interest. The porous carbon buffer layer is the main release volume for gas products, and it is the important part for transferring the fission heat. In this study, a theoretical model for effective thermal conductivity of porous carbon materials is developed and verified, which depends on the current porosity, the thermal conductivity of gas mixture and PyC skeleton. In this model, the temperature-pressure dependence of thermal conductivity for the released gas mixture is considered, with the fitting relation based on the existing experimental data. The porosity, the amounts of released gas mixture in the pores and the pore pressure are considered to evolve with burnup. Appearance of a buffer-IPyC gap is also involved. The effects of initial porosity of buffer layer, appearance of a buffer-IPyC gap, different kernel materials and irradiation temperature on the effective thermal conductivity are investigated. The effect of uncertainties in the thermal conductivity of dense PyC skeleton material is also analyzed. This work is expected to provide a fundamental basis for further precise simulation of the in-pile thermo-mechanical coupling behavior in FCM fuel pellets.