Logjam continues on carbon market
NEWDELHI: Countries will have to go back to the drawing board on new carbon markets at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid. Carbon markets are one of the main tools to keep global temperature rise under 2 degrees Celsius by ensuring a cap on how much we can emit globally after 2020.
The draft release on carbon markets rules, modalities and procedures for the mechanism has been forwarded to different parties concerned. According to the release, the text does not represent a consensus and work is needed to arrive at a conclusion.
The logjam related to corresponding adjustments (when one country sells emissions reductions to another, it must adjust its own emissions data accordingly) and carry over of unsold carbon credits from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) among other issues, according to members of the civil society organisation present during the negotiations. The CDM allows emissionreduction projects in developing countries to earn certified emission reduction (CER) credits, which can be traded and sold.
India is resisting any attempt to cancel unsold credits since it has a large burden of such credits, which will become economically unviable if not carried forward. According to India, although more than 1,700 projects have been successfully registered under the CDM mechanism, millions of CER credits remain unsold due to the collapse of the
CDM market.
“In an attempt by some countries to undermine the sanctity of mutually agreed decisions and commitments under the pre-2020 period, the transition of projects, activities and units generated under the CDM of the Kyoto regime in this period to the new market-mechanism applicable in the post-2020 period is being resisted,” it has submitted.
“It was clear before the start of COP25 that few elements of Article 6 would need political consensus. Countries are holding on to their positions with little movement towards landing zone,” said Chirag Gajjar, lead mitigation, climate at World Resources Institute (WRI).
“The text on markets is still filled with many contradictory options on key issues such as carrying over Kyoto-era credits and ensuring overall mitigation of global emissions. Without strong rules any compromise will be hollow,” said Tarun Gopalakrishnan, deputy programme manager, climate, Centre for Science and Environment.
RISE IN INDIA’S SOLAR CAPACITY
India‘s solar capacity has jumped 12 times in the past five years and has retired at least 170 old and inefficient thermal power plants at the Facilitative Sharing of Views (FSV) forum, where developing countries present their mitigation response to climate change. India also said that its share of non-fossil fuel sources in installed power capacity increased from 30.5% in March 2015 to 37.1% in October 2019.