The Climate Summit approves a global carbon market regulated by the UN

Throughout Saturday the atmosphere sand it has been tense in Baku to the point of fearing a derailment of the Climate Summit. The key issue of the meeting, achieving climate financing to help developing countries, still not moving forward, despite being in injury time, as the meeting should have concluded on Friday. Given the impossibility, so far, of reaching an agreement on money, the COP29 presidency has decided to convene a plenary session in which to vote on the most procedural issues and those on which an agreement had been reached. This is where the global carbon market fits in.

The international community has needed almost a decade to launch carbon markets. A controversial measure that, according to its defenders, will help reduce greenhouse emissions, but that also makes its detractors fear that it will limit efforts to cut emissions.

Carbon credits are created through tree reforestation projects or the construction of wind farms in a less developed country. For every metric ton of emissions absorbed from the atmosphere, a carbon credit is generated that can be purchased by countries or companies.

Now the attendees have decided to give the green light to a carbon market regulated by the United Nations and also to the possibility of bilateral trade between countries. A measure that has proven popular both among developing countries seeking international financing and among richer nations eager to find new ways to meet strict emissions reduction targets, Reuters notes. In fact, at the beginning of this month more than 90 agreements between countries had already been closed for more than 140 pilot projects.

The International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) estimates that a UN-backed carbon market could be worth 250 billion dollars a year by 2030, and offset an additional 5 billion metric tons of carbon emissions per year.

UN climate chief Simon Stiell said on the first day of the Climate Summit that “this is not some arcane UN bureaucracy,” but something that could help countries implement their climate plans. “When operational, these carbon markets will help countries implement your climate plans faster and more economically, reducing emissions. “We are a long way from halving emissions this decade, but the achievements in carbon markets here at COP29 will help us get back into that race,” he said.

Strain

However, the key issue of COP29 remains unresolved and the atmosphere is increasingly charged in Baku. In the morning, developed countries agreed to mobilize up to $300 billion a year in financing for developing countries. It was his offer after two weeks of negotiation to try to unblock the match already in injury time. But the figure was still far from the 1.3 billion that they asked for initially the underdeveloped countries or even the 500,000 million raised at least by the G77 group and China, made up of the countries of the ‘Global South’. Thus, in an afternoon meeting this Saturday where the issue was raised with the representatives of almost 200 countries present, frustration broke out among the most vulnerable states, whose representatives came to stand up from the talks.

This was done by the African group of Least Developed Countries (LDC) and the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis). The latter were leaving the financing negotiation table because it did not offer a “way forward,” they said. «The process must be inclusive. If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our participation here at COP29,” clarified Cedric Schuster, president of the alliance, who also assured that the island states have felt “continually insulted” by the lack of inclusion. “Our requests are being ignored,” he said.

The following hours have been of bilateral meetings and efforts to get them back to the negotiating table. «We are doing everything we can to build bridges with literally everyone,” said EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, according to the BBC. “It is not easy, neither in terms of finances nor in terms of mitigation. It is also fair to ask that we continue to be constructive.