Climate summit approves UN-regulated global carbon market

S atmosphere all day on SaturdayAnd tension prevails in Baku To such an extent that there are fears of the climate summit being derailed. The main issue of the meeting is to secure climate financing to help developing countries. Still not moving forward, Despite being in injury time, the meeting should have finished on Friday. Given the impossibility so far of reaching an agreement on money, the COP29 Presidency has decided to convene a plenary session in which most procedural issues and issues on which agreement was reached will be voted on. This is where the global carbon market fits in.

The international community needs this almost a decade To launch a carbon market. A controversial measure that, according to its defenders, will help reduce greenhouse emissions, but that its opponents also fear will limit efforts to cut emissions.

Carbon credits are created through tree reforestation projects or the construction of wind farms in a less developed country. For every metric ton of emissions absorbed from the atmosphere, a carbon credit is generated that can be purchased by countries or companies.

Now attendees have decided to greenlight the possibility of a UN-regulated carbon market and bilateral trade between countries. Reuters says a measure that has proven popular with both developing countries seeking international financing and rich countries seeking new ways to meet strict emissions reduction targets. In fact, at the beginning of this month itself, more than 90 agreements had been signed between countries for more than 140 pilot projects.

The International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) estimates that a UN-backed carbon market could be meaningful 250 billion dollars per year by 2030, and will offset an additional 5 billion metric tons of carbon emissions per year.

UN climate chief Simon Still said on the first day of the climate summit that “this is not some arcane UN bureaucracy,” but something that can help countries implement their climate plans. “Once operational, these carbon markets will help countries Implement your climate plans Reducing emissions, faster and more economically. “We are a long way from halving emissions this decade, but achievements in carbon markets at COP29 will help us get back in that race,” he said.

strain

However, the main issue of COP29 remains unresolved and the atmosphere in Baku is becoming increasingly tense. In the morning, developed countries agreed to mobilize up to $300 billion a year in financing for developing countries. After two weeks of talks it was his proposal to try to unblock the match in injury time. But the figure was still far away 1.3 billion they asked for 500,000 million initially raised by underdeveloped countries or even at least the G77 group and China, composed of countries in the ‘Global South’. Thus, at this Saturday afternoon’s meeting where this issue was raised with representatives from almost 200 countries, despair erupted Among the weakest states, whose representatives stood down during the negotiations.

This was done by the African Group of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). The latter was leaving the financing negotiating table because it did not offer a “way forward,” he said. ,The process should be inclusive. If this cannot happen, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our participation here at COP29,” explained Cedric Schuster, president of the coalition, who also assured that the lack of inclusion has resulted in the island states “constantly Felt “humiliated”. “Our requests are being ignored,” he said.

The next hours were filled with bilateral meetings and efforts to bring them back to the negotiating table. ,We are doing everything we can “Building relationships with virtually everyone,” EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said, according to the BBC. “It is not easy, neither in terms of finance nor in terms of mitigation. It’s also fair to ask that we remain creative.