At COP29, full implementation of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement was achieved and international carbon markets are opening.
“Informe” reports that the COP29 Presidency announced today that the ten-year waiting period to conclude negotiations on highly integrated carbon markets under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement has ended.
It should be noted that this was one of the main priorities of this year’s Presidency and, through intense technical and political negotiations, the Parties moved towards this important achievement. This strategy ends years of stagnation and completes the last paragraph of the Paris Agreement.
The article provides robust and transparent carbon markets for countries cooperating to achieve climate goals.
This cross-border cooperation is expected to reduce the cost of implementing countries’ national climate plans by up to $250 billion per year.
The COP29 Presidency calls on Parties to reinvest these savings into greater climate ambitions. The next generation of Nationally Determined Contributions, launching in February, is critical to the world’s hopes of keeping 1.5 degrees within reach. Today’s milestone will help countries make more ambitious commitments in their climate plans.
COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev said: “We have ended a decade of waiting and opened up a critical tool to keep 1.5 degrees within reach. Climate change is a transnational issue and Article 6 will enable transnational solutions .Because the atmosphere doesn’t care where emissions savings are achieved.”
COP29 chief negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev said: “Today we have resolved one of the most complex and technical problems in climate diplomacy. Article 6 is difficult to understand, but its impact will be evident in our daily lives. It is the closure of coal-fired power plants, the construction of wind farms and forestry. This means a new wave of investment in the developing world.
It should be noted that although the COPs held in Glasgow and Sharm el-Sheikh established important rules, conditions and procedures for carbon markets, the final key elements of Article 6 remained unresolved. Before COP29, these negotiations had stalled, causing costly delays on the path to closer international climate cooperation.
The COP29 presidency took a targeted approach that broke previous multilateral deadlocks. Throughout the year, the Presidency facilitated productive relations between the Parties and moved forward by combining technical and political debates to reach consensus. This set the stage for the early adoption of Article 6.4 rules on the first day of COP29, setting the stage for today’s outcome.
The COP29 Presidency would like to thank the people and organizations who have worked tirelessly for a decade to achieve today’s progress. The current consensus was made possible by their long-term efforts.
“Today’s unanimous decisions on Article 6 will play a key role in ensuring the environmental integrity, transparency and credibility of carbon markets through real, incremental, verifiable and measurable emissions reductions and eliminations, and in unlocking their enormous potential to increase global climate investment.” , – stated the COP29 presidency.
“The guidelines and rules adopted are designed to ensure that carbon projects remain practical and inclusive, respect human rights and support sustainable development, and allow countries and project developers to cooperate with confidence within the framework of the Paris Agreement Making these decisions does not mean “The end of your evolution. “The Parties, as they learn from experience, may continually modify the rules of Article 6,” the statement said.
