COP29: Climate Action Network responds to latest Article 6.2 text
21 November 2024
Baku – In response to the latest Article 6.2 text, Climate Action Network experts expressed dismay, and called for transparency and accountability.
Andy Katz, International Team Lead, Sierra Club, said: “This Wild West approach to carbon crediting leads to a race to the bottom. Transparency isn’t optional under the Paris Agreement, but the proposed decision would allow countries to evade critical disclosure, and consequences of any emission claims that don’t add up.
The outcome must require full disclosure of information about the underlying methodology and baseline so the Technical Expert Reviewers can determine what’s additional, and what was happening anyway.”
Erika Lennon, Senior Attorney, Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) said: “Approving this text would be a gift to polluters and a disaster for people and the planet. After years of scandal after scandal in the voluntary carbon markets, this is shaping up to be something even worse. The complete lack of accountability for projects that do not deliver claimed emissions impacts or violate human rights, including the rights of Indigenous Peoples, with nothing more than a ‘pretty please don’t use the ITMO,’ is a win for carbon cowboys and a massive blow to ensuring a liveable future.”
Jonathan Crook, Policy Lead on Global Carbon Markets, Carbon Market Watch, said: “Rather than put in place sensible improvements to transparency and accountability, some countries have succeeded in gutting the Article 6.2 text of any ambition. If adopted, it would further obscure transparency around the carbon credits countries will trade to offset very real emissions. Even worse, the last opportunity to strengthen the critically weak review process would be entirely missed, with countries remaining free to trade carbon credits that are of low quality, or even fail to comply with Article 6.2 rules, without real oversight.
A major course-correct is urgently needed this evening for Article 6.2 to improve its rules on quality and transparency. Otherwise, the Article 6.2 titanic is headed straight for an iceberg that will sink ambition into the murky depths.”
Notes to Editors:
1. Previous Article 6 context and decisions can be found here: https://unfccc.int/process/the-paris-agreement/cooperative-implementation
2. Latest Article 6.2 text (version published on 21 November): https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/Art_6.2_CMA_15a_DD.pdf
3. Climate Action Network – International Carbon Markets Working Group Recommendations on Article 6 Texts
4. Today, the Swiss NGO Alliance Sud released a new investigation about a Swiss-Ghanaian cookstove programme under article 6.2, raising important questions about transparency and integrity of bilateral programmes under article 6. The investigation found that the planned emission reductions were overestimated by up to 79%. Further, it revealed a collaboration with the multinational Adama to sell not only cookstoves to Ghanaian smallholder farmers but at the same time toxic pesticides not allowed for sale in Europe. Link to the investigation: https://www.alliancesud.ch/en/schweizer-CO2-Kompensation-in-Ghana
5. Last week, researchers published in Nature Communications a systematic assessment covering 2346 carbon credit projects, over one-fifth of credit volume issued to date under existing mechanisms, and found only 16% of these represented real emission reductions. “Systematic assessment of the achieved emission reductions of carbon crediting projects” Nature Communications https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-53645-z
Contact: media@climatenetwork.org