COP29 gets UN carbon markets going but concerns persist on climate integrity

The just-concluded COP29 UN global climate summit at Baku, Azerbaijan, could count only adoption of Article 6—a UN-mandated framework to enable emission mitigation and fund clean energy projects using market mechanisms such as carbon credits—as the only real achievement.

- S DINAKAR

These rules were adopted nine years after Article 6 first appeared in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

While the adoption of Article 6 helps countries like India to have bilateral arrangements with rich nations to develop projects, transfer credits, and enable local corporations to access global carbon markets, climate activists have panned it as half-baked, open to interpretation, and offering loopholes to projects with low environmental integrity to slip through the UN mechanism.

"The flaws of Article 6 have, unfortunately, not been fixed," said Isa Mulder, policy expert on global carbon markets, from Carbon Market Watch. "It seems countries were more willing to adopt insufficient rules and deal with the consequences later, rather than prevent those consequences in the first place," Mulder said.

Countries face no real repercussions if they fail to abide by the rules, with non-compliance of carbon credit deals, Mulder said, adding: "With no deadline to take action, nor clear penalties, countries have little incentive not to game the system."