Richer nations accused of stalling progress on climate crisis
Brazil, India and China singled out in UN talks as acting to block agreement on article 6 of Paris agreement
Brazil, India and China singled out in UN talks as acting to block agreement on article 6 of Paris agreement
Poor countries have accused a handful of richer nations of holding up progress on tackling the climate crisis at UN talks in Madrid, as demonstrators and activists vented their frustration in the final hours of two weeks of negotiations.
The talks, which had been due to end on Friday, dragged on with negotiators still battling on Saturday to salvage a result, as governments wrangled over the details of a seemingly arcane issue: carbon markets, governed by a provision of the 2015 Paris agreement known as article 6
Brazil, India and China were singled out as acting to block agreement on article 6, as ministers from the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) warned that their countries would suffer most if there was no decision.
Simon Stiell, Grenada’s environment minister, speaking for AOSIS, urged all parties to reach a compromise. “Our countries will be rendered uninsurable if we breach 1.5C warming,” he said.
There was a widespread view among delegates that Brazil was refusing to compromise on article 6 as a means of holding up implementation of the Paris accord. Brazil’s rightwing president, Jair Bolsonaro, is hostile to the Paris agreement,
and is accused of paving the way for devastating fires set by ranchers in the Amazon, but the government is still officially a party to the UN talks.
Article 6 focuses on the role of carbon markets and carbon trading in helping countries to fulfil their pledges under the Paris agreement. Carbon markets allow for countries to claim
carbon credits for carbon sinks, such as standing forests, and for emissions-cutting efforts, such as wind farms or renewable energy projects.These credits can be sold to rich countries, which can count them towards their own emissions targets.
Carbon markets were introduced in the 1997 Kyoto protocol as a mechanism for directing financial investment towards poor countries which would otherwise struggle to implement clean technology, or face economic pressure to cut down their forests.
Brazil’s contention is that its forests should be counted as carbon sinks towards its national emissions targets, meaning it could make less effort to cut emissions in other areas, but that it should also be allowed to sell credits based on keeping the forests intact.
Other countries are also trying to ensure that carbon credits awarded in the decades since the Kyoto protocol are carried over beyond 2020, which critics say would allow those countries to ease off on their Paris commitments.
