Delegates from over 200 countries attending the 29th Conference of Parties (COP29) have agreed on new United Nations standards on carbon markets, permitting polluters to pay for their climate-ills through credits abroad.
Carbon credits are obtained through activities that cut, or avoid greenhouse gas emissions, like planting trees, protecting carbon sinks like oceans or replacing fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas with clean energy alternatives.
However, delegates attending COP29 still need to negotiate further on the 15-page document which has provisions that countries need to abide by.
“This will be a game-changing tool to direct resources to the developing world and help us save up to $250 billion a year when implementing our climate plans. We are grateful to all Parties who have come to COP29 ready to show flexibility, collaborate, and reach agreement,” said Yalchin Rafiyev, COP29 Lead Negotiator.
While the Azerbaijani presidency was bold enough to end a nine-year deadlock on the operationalisation of Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement, a new report shows that carbon emissions globally are set to increase by 0.8 per cent in 2024 compared to last year.
This year alone, data from the Global Carbon Budget shows that there were about 37.4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.
The Global Carbon Budget report is produced by an international team of more than 120 scientists, providing an annual, peer-reviewed update that measures global greenhouse gas emissions and their causes. This data, however, has not been peer-reviewed.
In the past, only carbon emissions from fossils showed an upward trend, but their analysis shows that this year, emissions from both fossil and land-use change such as deforestation for farming or development, are likely to increase.
The authors of the report say that the 2023-2024 El Niño event partly contributed to the emissions, because of the droughts that led to forest fires leading to degradation.
In a statement by Global Carbon Budget, Pierre Friedlingstein, of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute, explains that while the impacts of climate change are worsening, their data shows no sign of a peak in the burning of fossil fuels.
“Time is running out to meet the Paris Agreement goals – and world leaders meeting at COP29 must bring about rapid and deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions to give us a chance of staying well below 2°C warming above pre-industrial levels,” he said.
The Paris Agreement asks countries to limit global warming to about 1.5 degrees Celsius below pre-industrial levels –a limit that preliminary data from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Services shows is likely to be breached this year. The Global Carbon Budget predicts that this limit will be attained in six years if countries do not reduce the use of fossil fuels.
“This estimate is subject to large uncertainties, primarily due to the uncertainty of the additional warming coming from non-CO2 agents (like methane, nitrous oxides, and aerosols). However, it’s clear that the remaining carbon budget – and therefore the time left to meet the 1.5°C target and avoid the worst impacts of climate change – has almost run out,” they say in a statement.
At the Dubai COP last year, one of the wins was an agreement by nations to transition away from fossil fuels.
It was the first time a COP agreed to headline a ‘transition from fossil fuels’ text, igniting a conversation on the phase-out of coal, oil and gas. At COP28 still, countries also agreed to triple renewable energy use by 2030.
The agreement on International Carbon Markets at COP29 comes barely a year after Kenya embedded new regulations on carbon credits by enforcing the Climate Change (Amendment) Act, 2023.
The new agreement on carbon markets has faced criticism in some quarters. Head of External Engagement at the World Animal Protection, Kelly Dent, said that Parties at COP29 in Baku have taken a dangerous step forward on critical Article 6 carbon markets, undermining the decision-making process and raising issues of transparency.
“Despite another rise in global emissions this year, the latest data shows evidence of widespread climate action, with the growing penetration of renewables and electric cars displacing fossil fuels, and decreasing deforestation emissions in the past decades confirmed for the first time,” said Professor Corinne Le Quéré, Royal Society Research Professor at the University of East Anglia School of Environmental Sciences.
He said that embracing carbon markets imply that human rights abuses, animal suffering and irreversible environmental damage will continue.
“This permits agribusiness to continue to pollute and they will not be compelled to reduce their emissions. These false solutions and the private finance generated, will move us further away from an equitable, humane and sustainable food system that places animals, people and their communities at its heart,” he said.
