The Climate Summit gets stuck in the regulation of CO 2 markets | Society


The Climate Summit (COP25), which is held in Madrid until Friday, has stranded in the development of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, that is, in the systems by which units or carbon dioxide (CO) emission rights are exchangedtwo) between countries and between companies. And, as some negotiators warned on Tuesday, there is a risk that the development of this point will be postponed again another year due to the impossibility of agreeing to the almost 200 countries participating in the summit. Although this COP, the number 25 that has been held since 1995, is transitional, it had two objectives: a political one - to ensure that countries commit to presenting more ambitious emission cut plans - and another technical, that is, to culminate the development of Paris Agreement with, among other matters, the regulation of that article 6.

Apparently, one might think that this is a secondary technical issue, but the development of this section -which already embarked a year ago at the COP that was held in Katowice (Poland)- It can be a key weapon to help cut greenhouse gas emissions and comply with the climate pact. Because, as the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change recalled on Tuesday, Patricia Espinosa, Article 6 "is the only part of the Paris Agreement that directly involves the private sector." He said it at the opening ceremony of the high-level sessions of the summit.

During the first days of COP25 the technical teams have been negotiating, but not enough progress has been made: “There are still issues to be resolved, many square brackets in the texts,” explained sources of the negotiation. From this Tuesday the talks include the ministers, who will have to try to reach a pact despite the differences. The COP25 presidency, which holds Chile, has appointed the environment ministers of South Africa and New Zealand to coordinate the negotiation to reach a consensus on the development of article 6.

The debate focuses on those known as emission reduction units in the Kyoto Protocol. With that pact - which dates from 1997 and will be replaced by the Paris Agreement from 2020 - the emission rights trade was created through the exchange of units between countries and between companies. These units refer to CO savingstwo that certain projects achieve. For example, a reforestation plan for a forest that acts as a sink contributes to not emitting a specific amount of COtwo. This saving is certified and quantified in tons of carbon dioxide and a country - or a company - can acquire the units to meet their gas cut commitments.

From Kyoto to Paris

The battle that is being fought now in the COP refers to the units that have been generated during the period of validity of the Kyoto Protocol. A group of countries, led by Brazil, want these units to continue to be used for countries to fulfill their commitments made under the Paris Agreement from 2020. But most states rule it out when they understand that the plans signed under the umbrella from Paris refer to new cuts from the next decade.

Kelly Levin, an expert at the World Resources Institute (WIR), recalls that a recent study placed the remaining units of the Kyoto Protocol at 4,000 million. That is, savings equivalent to 4,000 million tons of COtwo. And one of the countries that accumulates the most units is precisely Brazil.


CO2 emission price

in the EU

Price per CO2 emission in the EU

Price per CO2 emission in the EU

The Climate Summit gets stuck in the regulation of CO 2 markets



The other big point of friction concerns double accounting. Kyoto divided the world into two: developed countries forced to cut their emissions and developing countries, which were not obliged to do so. That is, there were clear buyers and sellers of units. However, the Paris Agreement equals everyone: any country that signs the pact must submit plans to cut emissions. And the thing is complicated. Because, according to most of the countries that negotiate in Madrid, a robust mechanism must be created to avoid double counting, that is, that the same unit cannot be used in the emission cut-off plan of the country where the project is developed that supports it and the country that acquires that same unit. Again, sources of negotiation stand out, Brazil is the country that puts more problems in the development of these mechanisms to avoid double counting.

In what has been achieved, the sources consulted are exposed, it is in the creation of a fee for transfers of emission rights, mainly between companies. The funds raised would go to aid countries with fewer resources to adapt to the impacts of global warming that is already considered irreversible.

What does work

The EU has had an emissions market since 2005 (the ETS) that obliges the most polluting industries to acquire rights for every ton of COtwo that generate. The philosophy surrounding these markets - in the world, in addition to the EU, eight other countries have systems of this type - is that by putting a price on carbon, companies will be forced to seek less emitting alternatives. It has taken the EU almost 15 years to fulfill that premise and it has not been until now that coal plants have begun to close or announced closures due, in part, to the fact that the price of a ton of CO has risen considerablytwo.

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