BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 23. Today, the COP29
Presidency announced the end of the decade-long wait for the
conclusion of negotiations on high integrity carbon markets under
Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, Trend reports.
This was one of the Presidency’s top priorities for the year and
it drove Parties towards this milestone achievement through
intensive dual-track technical and political negotiations. This
strategy broke through years of stalemate and finalises the last
outstanding item in the Paris Agreement.
Article 6 provides trusted and transparent carbon markets for
countries as they collaborate to reach their climate goals. This
cross-border cooperation is expected to reduce the cost of
implementing countries’ national climate plans (NDCs) by up to $250
billion per year.
The COP29 Presidency encourages Parties to reinvest these
savings in even greater climate ambition. The next generation of
NDCs, due in February, are make-or-break for the world’s hopes of
keeping 1.5 degrees within reach.
Today’s milestone has been reached just in time to aid countries
in committing to more ambition in their climate plans.
“We have ended a decade-long wait and unlocked a critical tool
for keeping 1.5 degrees in reach,” said COP29 President Mukhtar
Babayev. “Climate change is a transnational challenge and Article 6
will enable transnational solutions. Because the atmosphere does
not care where emissions savings are made.”
COP29 Lead Negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev commented, “Today, we have
unlocked one of the most complex and technical challenges in
climate diplomacy. Article 6 is hard to understand, but its impacts
will be clear in our everyday lives. It means coal plants
decommissioned, wind farms built and forests planted. It means a
new wave of investment in the developing world.”
Today’s outcome was hard-won. While the Glasgow and Sharm
El-Sheikh COPs were able to establish important rules, modalities
and procedures for carbon markets, the final building blocks of
Article 6 remained unresolved. Prior to COP29, these negotiations
had stalled, resulting in a costly delay in the full functioning of
this pathway to greater international climate collaboration.
The COP29 Presidency employed a dedicated approach that unlocked
previous multilateral stalemates. Throughout the year, the
Presidency fostered productive engagement between Parties and drove
progress by bridging the technical and political discussions to
create consensus. This set the ground for early adoption of Article
6.4 standards on day one of COP29, which in turn built momentum
towards today’s breakthrough.
The COP29 Presidency acknowledges with gratitude the many
individuals and organisations that have been working tirelessly for
nearly a decade to reach this achievement. Today’s consensus would
not have been possible without the progress they achieved through
their years of efforts.
The decisions unanimously adopted today on Article 6 will play a
pivotal role in ensuring environmental integrity, transparency and
robustness of carbon markets through real, additional, verified and
measurable emission reductions and removals, while also unleashing
their enormous potential to drive global climate investment.
The guidelines and rules adopted are designed to ensure that
carbon projects maintain practicality and inclusivity, respect
human rights and provide support to sustainable development,
enabling countries and project developers to cooperate under the
Paris Agreement with confidence. The adoption of these decisions
does not mark the end of their evolution. The Parties can
continually adjust the Article 6 rulebook as they learn by
doing.
