Early this morning, I got the news from Madrid: Article 6 has been delayed to COP26 in Glasgow. The Parties were not able to come to an agreement on several key issues governing new international carbon markets. Climate action can and must go on without Article 6–the whole premise behind Article 6 is that cooperative, market-based approaches between different countries will leverage the power of markets for greater ambition in emissions reductions, especially in those places where it is more feasible. However, this does not mean that greater ambition cannot happen without Article 6 mechanisms in place.
As each year reports record breaking temperatures and we see extreme weather events occurring constantly around the world, there is no time to delay action. In 2019, we saw movements of youth, indigenous people, and even private actors, sounding the alarm that decarbonization, equitable adaptation to climate change, and the move towards a more sustainable future cannot wait. With or without a deal on carbon markets at the UNFCCC, governments and other powerful actors must make decisions in 2020 that allow us to reach our emissions reductions goals in the next decade.
Many NDCs have target years of 2030, pledging large emissions reductions (for the most part–some laggards exist) by that timeline. However, those goals cannot be met in a couple of years. The groundwork needs to be laid now to ensure that we are on track to achieve those goals–and plenty of modelling shows that even if all countries meet their NDCs, as a global community we still won’t meet the 2 degree goal, never mind the 1.5 report from last year.
Last week in Madrid, I heard many private sector actors claim they were waiting on Article 6 to receive a signal from the international community on what the rules would be so that they could play by those rules in a new international carbon market. Though there wasn’t an agreement reached, these actors need to press forward in light of what they do know. During the negotiations I watched, it was clear that most Parties knew exactly where the zones of disagreement on the rules on Article 6 were and what was not up for debate at COP25. A lack of decided-upon rules does not mean that these actors cannot move forward with plans to generate credits through renewable energy, afforestation, conservation of carbon sinks, and reduce emissions through fuel-switching, energy efficiency and carbon capture and storage. All these activities already exist in the real world absent international decisions about them, and these market actors should move forward, knowing that in the future those market opportunities will exist.
As was repeated many times throughout the COP, no deal on Article 6 would be better than a bad deal. Though I and many others did have hope that a good deal was within reach at COP25, it may be for the best that bad rules were not issued as a result of this conference. It is unclear whether the next meeting (SB52 in June 2020) will bring about consensus on these thorny issues. Negotiators from different blocs were fighting hard to ensure that no loopholes exist in the final rules, which seems like a good thing to me. I hope that the lack of agreement in Madrid does not stymie progress, but that countries and private actors move forward with their plans to engage in mitigation. As of writing, some countries including Switzerland and Japan have decided to use the draft decision texts in designing their approaches in 2020.
While disappointing, we must not be discouraged by the lack of international agreement on key climate change issues. The energy is stronger than ever to implement changes that will take us into the future. Though being in this space can be very demoralizing as it is unclear whether any of our efforts today will be effective enough to slow the disastrous effects of climate change, I refuse to believe that we lose hope. We must do all that we can to guarantee our planet’s future for our children and children’s children. Whether or not our changes end up making a difference in 20 years, we must still fight for justice today, justice for the future, and equity along the way.
