A tool synonymous with success or a burden? Monday, November 11, in the first minutes of the opening ceremony on the 29thmy Climate Conference of the Parties (COP29), Sultan Al-Jaber, president of COP28, passed the hammer that seals important decisions to his successor, Azerbaijan Mukhtar Babayev.
A year after having managed to include – for the first time in a climate diplomacy text – the terms of “exit from fossil fuels”The 198 parties now have until November 22, or eleven days, to agree on a funding amount to help developing countries succeed in their transition. “green”. “We know that these negotiations are complex and difficult”Babayev immediately warned.
A few hours later, to get the conference off to a good start, the Azerbaijani presidency was already banging the hammer by adopting rules aimed at better regulating part of Article 6 on carbon markets. A strategy identical to that of the United Arab Emirates, which materialized the “loss and damage” fund from the first hours of its COP.
The sea serpent of climate negotiations since the Paris Agreement, Article 6, has allowed carbon markets to develop without sufficiently robust international standards, according to several studies that have shown the inefficiency of numerous projects. Considered too flexible by the European Union (EU) and many developing countries, the regulation and standardization project proposed last year at COP28 failed.
On Monday afternoon, the parties approved a text that establishes procedures around Article 6.4, entrusting a United Nations body with the task of overseeing the exchange of carbon credits between countries or companies. Civil society denounced a forceful measure, pointing in particular to the Control Body of article 6.4, a small technical committee, which will apply the rules. “without the opinion of the States”, according to the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). “This undermines the ability of states to discuss, let alone review, rules before they come into force.”estimated Erika Lennon, CIEL lawyer. The rest of Article 6, particularly 6.2, which governs transactions between countries, remains on the negotiators’ agenda.
“We are on the path to ruin”
The organizers were too interested in boasting a first victory at the start of this very dangerous COP. During the first day, the presidency of Azerbaijan followed in the footsteps of scientists, while the World Meteorological Organization drew, on Monday, November 11, “maximum alert”, explaining that the year 2024 will exceed, for the first time, 1.5°C of global warming, the most ambitious threshold of the Paris agreement adopted in 2015.
You have 53.78% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
