The United Nations’ (UN) annual climate conference started on Nov 11 with a “breakthrough”, according to host nation Azerbaijan, as parties agreed on rules for a UN-administered global carbon market.
Parties have “achieved a critical early success” by welcoming standards adopted by the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body for the creation of carbon credits under Article 6.4, says the COP29 Presidency. These standards will ensure that the international carbon market is of high integrity, and that emissions reductions and removals are real, additional, verified and measurable.
Work had begun in October, when Azerbaijan hosted a meeting of the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body, which proposed a set of standards for Article 6.4. The COP29 Presidency says it “built support” for these standards at “Pre-COP”, a series of negotiations held on Oct 10 and 11.
COP29 will run from Nov 11 to 22 in the capital of Baku, with some 70,000 delegates registered to attend. Heads of state and government officials will participate in the leaders’ segment on Nov 12 and 13.
‘Risky text’
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The Nov 11 opening plenary was delayed multiple times, and the Article 6.4 text was adopted within an hour at 9.50pm in Azerbaijan (1.50am, Nov 12 in Singapore).
Some climate groups had warned that the COP29 Presidency would gavel through the Article 6.4 text before governments had the chance to properly negotiate it. US-headquartered non-profit group Corporate Accountability had issued a release just hours before that the COP29 Presidency was “rumoured to risk departing from precedent” by passing the “risky text on carbon removals”.
Among the 12 members of the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body is Benedict Chia, Director General (Climate Change) from the National Climate Change Secretariat in the Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore.
See also: COP29 ends with deal on climate finance after bitter fight
International environmental organisation 350.org says the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body — a “small technical committee” — took an “unprecedented step” of finalising and implementing rules for “speculative” carbon removal in markets “without wider state input”.
“This bypasses countries’ ability to revise & strengthen these standards,” says 350.org in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“At COP27 and COP28, governments rejected draft rules on carbon removal, warning that they could weaken climate action and encourage risky approaches like carbon capture and geoengineering. Now, these rules are moving forward without the same scrutiny,” they add in a subsequent post.
Kicking off COP29 with a “back-door deal” sets a poor precedent for transparency and proper governance, says Isa Mulder, a policy expert on global carbon markets at research firm Carbon Market Watch, to Bloomberg. “If these texts can be adopted in this way, where do we draw the line?”
Olga Gassan-zade, a current member and former head of the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body, says in a comment on her personal LinkedIn page: “The criticisms of the process are fair, but it was also critically important to operationalise Article 6.4 as soon as possible to scale up the delivery of carbon finance to the developing world.”
Article 6 of the Paris Agreement sets out how countries can pursue voluntary co-operation to reach their climate targets. This means countries can collaborate to achieve their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) — or their plans to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change — by trading carbon credits.
Countries first established the framework for international carbon trading through Article 6 in late-2021, but talks have stalled. Article 6-compliant markets will be a critical tool to channel more investment to developing countries, as it will allow countries to target mitigation efforts to where costs are lowest.
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The standards for Article 6.4 agreed today are not set in stone. As they are governed by the CMA — or the states that are parties to the Paris Agreement — the parties will be able to further enhance them “as they see fit”, says the COP29 Presidency.
Parties still need to agree on the remaining building blocks of Article 6. This includes Article 6.2 and the final elements of Article 6.4.
Article 6.2 enables a host country, which is on track to exceed its NDC target, to trade units in exchange for investments, support for capacity-building and access to technologies.
Once Article 6 negotiations have concluded, the COP29 Presidency says it will encourage the uptake of Article 6 carbon trading, so that countries can realise its potential benefits. Finalising Article 6 negotiations could reduce the cost of implementing national climate plans by US$250 billion ($333.86 billion) per year.
Finance COP
Dubbed the “Finance COP”, this year’s negotiations will centre around the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The NCQG will set out how much more funding will flow from the rich to the developing world, after the current US$100 billion-a-year goal expires in 2025.
Current contributors, including the European Union, are asking countries like China, which is still technically classed as a developing economy, to pay a share.
COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev calls it a “top negotiating priority” at this year’s summit. “We know the needs are in the trillions,” he says, while adding that a realistic goal for what the public sector can directly provide and mobilise seems to be in the “hundreds of billions”.
Some, however, are growing tired of the COP process. Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape has sent his environment minister instead in a mark of protest, calling for larger nations to move beyond “meaningless talkfests”. “Papua New Guinea is a major rainforest nation, and we are making our stance clear by protesting against these nations who do not prioritise rainforest conservation.”
World leaders — who typically attend the first week of COP before negotiators bargain over the fine print in the subsequent week — have also given various reasons for sending their climate envoys instead.
Absent from COP29 are US President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, China’s President Xi Jinping and Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, among others.
Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber, COP28 President, UAE, hands over the presidency to Mukhtar Babayev, COP29 President, Azerbaijan.
Sceptics have also levelled criticism at host country Azerbaijan for welcoming fossil fuel industry leaders and lobbyists to the summit, unchanged from last year’s COP28 in Dubai.
Last week, Elnur Soltanov, Azerbaijan’s deputy energy minister and CEO of COP29, was filmed saying he “would be happy” to facilitate discussions between national oil and gas firm Socar and an undercover activist posing as an investor.
Countries had agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in the final hours of last year’s COP, but Soltanov was recorded as saying: “We will have a certain amount of oil and natural gas being produced, perhaps forever.”
Photos: COP29 Azerbaijan
Read more about COP29:
- What are COP meetings for? Will this one make a difference? (November)
- UN biodiversity summit COP16 ends in limbo as countries spar over funding (November)
- COP29 Presidency hosts Pre-COP discussions in Baku (October)
- COP29 Presidency to convene ministerial dialogue on climate finance goal today (September)
- Azerbaijan will fund four members of each Small Island Developing State to attend COP29 (September)
- COP29 to call for sixfold increase in global energy storage (September)
- Azerbaijan proposes US$1 bil Climate Finance Action Fund, replacing planned fossil fuel levy (July)
- COP29 Presidency aims to enhance ambition, enable action (July)
- COP29 Presidency sets out agenda, emphasises upcoming work on New Collective Quantified Goal (June)
- COP29 Presidency hosts climate finance dialogue in Washington (April)
