SBSTA negotiators posed for the traditional "family photograph" after they completed their discussions on Article 6 this evening. The text now goes to ministers for political discussion.

Dear Colleagues,

As we put the finishing touches on today’s email, negotiators agreed to forward the Article 6 texts to a SBSTA plenary for adoption. Food and drink options in the IFEMA aren’t all that great after hours, so we hope they, and our observers, have stocked up; it could be a long night.

Today’s business started with the contact group resuming at 1000. After the second version of the texts appeared late on Saturday, Parties spent Sunday in bilaterals, and today was the first chance for them to exchange ideas in the wider group.

According to our people in the room, the interventions were more businesslike than before, with Parties mostly restricting themselves to suggestions for improving the language in the proposals.

After the informal concluded at around 1300, the co-facilitators retired to draft a new version – the third at this COP – that finally appeared at around 2015 this evening. Initial impressions from our text experts were that the drafting had been done very carefully to improve the structure and flow of the proposals, but that difficult issues remained. The text itself will need to be further improved before it can enter the high level political process.

The contact group on Article 6 resumed at 2200, and by 2220 it had agreed to forward the text to the SBSTA plenary.

At midnight, draft decision text for all SBSTA Article 6 decisions was published, reading: “The draft decision text is being forwarded for consideration at CMA 2 recognising that this text does not represent a consensus among Parties and that further work by the CMA is necessary to finalise the decision.”

The SBSTA plenary was expected to meet in the early hours of Tuesday to approve the text. As of 0130 on Tuesday morning it had yet to convene.

This means that, even if Parties are not satisfied with the current text, they are giving the green light to pass it over to the Chilean Presidency – who will handle the process from now on.

Monday at the IETA Business Hub

Late this afternoon, Andrei Marcu from ECSDT hosted an interesting side event at the IETA Business Hub involving several Article 6 negotiators. Panelists identified three major areas of disagreement: corresponding adjustments, CDM transition and Share of Proceeds, while several other points of divergence were less critical.

There was also some consensus that the Article 6.4 text is rather more complete than the Article 6.2, and that major questions still need resolving in the latter.

Furthermore, the lack of clear options on Article 6.8 text leaves it open as to whether there should be a supervisory body or not. Setting in place a a task force to work on the topic would acknowledge the very existence of non-market mechanisms, whereas leaving it to a SBSTA to come up with a workplan could leave the mechanism in potential limbo.

Tuesday at the IETA Business Hub

Our public event schedule begins at 0930 with an event sponsored by the Climate Action Reserve and the Climate Registry. The panel will discuss the difficulties in decarbonising the transportation sector, and review the state of policies at local and regional level.

At 1115 the discussion shifts towards action on transportation, as senior transportation executives look at the latest initiatives to develop low- or zero-carbon transportation.

We return to the topic of carbon capture and storage at 1230. The Global CCS Insiutute will consider how to translate bold ambition, and today’s roster of just 19 operational projects, into the more than 2,000 operating projects worldwide that are needed to decarbonise the world’s economies.

Please be aware that IETA’s Council will meet tomorrow from 1400-1700 at an outside location.

At 1400 IETA members ALLCOT will share details of their Open-Source Sustainable Development Goal Quantification. This methodology is being developed to establish measurable co-benefit SDG outcomes that can help generate a fair carbon price.

REDD+ will take centre stage at 1530, as Verra leads a panel discussion on how emerging markets can help drive demand for REDD+ activities. Government and project representatives will share the latest approaches to nested REDD+. Verra will sponsor a drinks reception afterwards at 1700.

Meanwhile, GEM returns to the stage at 1700 to present a live demonstration of their new meta-registry for trading carbon instruments under Article 6.

While IETA will hold its Annual General Meeting at an offsite location, the final event of the day at 1800 sees BusinessEurope present a discussion on industrial strategy to help climate ambition. Industry associations from Europe, Brazil and Indonesia will showcase their experiences and ideas on effective cooperation with their national governments on climate policy.

There will be a reception specifically for journalists at 1800 to discuss carbon capture with members of the Global CCS Institute. At 1830 and 1930 there will also be receptions at the IETA Business Hub sponsored by ReGen Future Capital and BusinessEurope respectively.

Kind regards,

Alessandro