The Sultanate of Oman made its presence felt at the 8th World Green Economy Summit held at World Trade Centre, Dubai this Tuesday and Wednesday. Hosts Dubai Electricity and Water Authority and World Green Economy Organisation held the summit under the patronage of Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
The theme of the summit ‘Climate Action Leadership through Collaboration: The road map to Net-zero’ shows the intent of decision-makers to take forward the initiatives of climate action, push development financing and boost multi-lateral partnerships to achieve the shift to green economies.
This summit was timely. It came while climate experts and government officials ponder over the next steps towards creating green and sustainable economies through discussion, negotiations, and consensus.
The renewed efforts and vow in Dubai to transform the world into green economies is laudable for a second reason – the 27th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC]. This conference [COP27] meets in 38 days in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt from November 6 to 18. This conference is important for the world which is dealing with the aftermath of Covid 19 pandemic, economic slowdown, hyper-inflation, war, and realignments in geopolitics.
Delegates have yet another opportunity to find amicable solutions to climate issues, specifically carbon markets. It is urgent they review national emission inventories presented by Conference of Parties [COP] and find answers the myriad issues. If not, the UN summit will remain yet another futile global meeting going on for the last 27 years since it started in 1995 in Berlin.
Critics say the Climate Conference’s work is ‘ineffective’. The assembly has made little progress in reducing emissions compatible with a below two degrees Celsius level because its focus on emission targets remains too narrow’.
Bucking the trend of objections and disagreements, the last COP 26 held in Glasgow did end with some takeaways. One being completion of the Article 6 template for negotiations of the Paris Agreement.
International Institute for Sustainable Development co-authors Charles Di Leva and Scot Vaughan explain the Agreement’s new Article 6 Rules in a paper written in 2021. Many experts viewed Article 6 as a “major advance in achieving the objective of the UNFCCC when Paris Agreement approved it in 2015. The evolving international climate regime, given that it embraced more clearly the notion that ‘cooperative approaches’ (or ‘markets’) could help governments achieve their national carbon cuts and removal targets.
“This advance could occur through international transactions in carbon reduction credits. Cooperative approaches could also encourage the private sector to contribute to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions. Notably, the Paris Agreement also embraced outright ‘non-market approaches’ among two or more parties.
“In the six years that followed, however, negotiators struggled to agree on the detailed rules for how these “cooperative approaches” would work. The result of the UNFCCC’s COP 26 in Glasgow marks a breakthrough in finalising these rules and opening the promise of carbon markets.”
The authors caution whether the “recent exuberance for the new carbon market rules” is necessary. They say this is relevant “given that prior international carbon market-style arrangements and the UNFCCC Kyoto Protocol’s “flexibility mechanisms” — most notably the Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) — have a controversial record in lowering GHG emissions.”
The authors laud new Article 6 rules at Glasgow as “notable achievement on several fronts. The new rules ensure parties cannot count GHG emission reductions twice. The rules limit the number of past CDM projects a country can count towards its reporting under its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). The new rules set a new international mechanism to oversee one portion of international carbon market”.
The authors close saying, “With the rules settled, the myriad details to make them work are not. Now the hard work begins to see if the promise of the market can deliver real and added benefits to the climate and society”.
[Surat, Gujarat-based author of this article has lived in five countries in the Middle East and Asia and worked for newspapers published from there. His last editorial position was Assistant Editor, The Kathmandu Post. Email: sudeep.sonawane@gmail.com]
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