The latest draft text on a future UN centralised carbon market leaves open the question of whether to allow greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions avoidance activities to generate credits. A decision on this might not now be taken until the Cop 29 UN climate conference next year.
Uncertainty over whether to allow emissions avoidance activities — generally agreed to be RED++ activities — to count as a nature-based solution equivalent to removal activities, and thereby qualify as emissions reductions credits under Article 6.4 of the Paris climate agreement, comes against a backdrop of concern over nature-based removals solutions removals during negotiations in the first week of the ongoing Cop 28 summit in Dubai. The draft text will be discussed at ministerial level from tomorrow.
The text for ministers to consider provides for three main options on avoidance. Under the first, emissions avoidance and forest conservation are regarded as equivalent to emissions reduction or removals activities under Article 6.4. Under the second, forest conservation activities fall under Article 6.4, but emissions avoidance does not. And the third option stipulates that there should be more technical discussions, postponing a decision until the next Cop.
Concern over removals derailed progress on Article 6.4 at Cop 27 in Sharm-el-Sheikh last year.
There was broad agreement in the first week of this year's gathering on the other difficult Article 6.4 issue — the types of methodology admissible for calculating how credits may be generated — despite some concerns. Both removals and methodologies had necessitated special guidance drawn up by the mechanism's supervisory body ahead of Cop 28.
Most parties were heard to demand better safeguards surrounding nature-based solutions in the first week.
Delegates from the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and the Independent Alliance of Latin America and the Caribbean (AILAC) blocs, and the EU, were heard to warn of removals' potential threat to environmental integrity, with AOSIS delegates in particular lamenting a perceived lack of scientific input in the supervisory body recommendations. Environmental non-governmental organisations slammed the lack of any mention of human rights.
Parties demanded more research into various aspects of nature-based solutions, including the durability of an activity or the difference between avoidable and unavoidable reversals, and the exclusion of activities with a high risk of reversal.
More guidance was demanded on issues such as host country responsibilities and the timing and monitoring of post-crediting periods.
But there were also suggestions from the African bloc and the Like-Minded Group of Developing Countries (LCDM) group to aim for rapid operationalisation of Article 6.4, while working simultaneously on improving removals and methodologies recommendations.
Article 6.4 credits can be issued and traded once the central mechanism has been operationalised. The vice-chair of the supervisory body has suggested that the mechanism could become operational even without an agreement on removals, perhaps as early as the second half of 2024.
