Day 5: November 13
Without all the logistical upheaval created by the High-Level segment – highways closed off, everyone rushing at the same time to get into the Blue Zone before the doors were shut – walking into the COP31 venue this morning was an early-morning stroll through deserted city streets.
That didn't last long, and pretty quickly the delegation pavilion hall was swarming, and IETA's Business Hub was packed for much of the day. Thanks so much to our partner sponsors who've made our side event schedule one of the best!
On Friday morning we saw the first iteration of the draft cover text that will represent the political statement from this COP.
At this early stage the document is a laundry list of various Parties' and group's priorities, so it contains some overlap, repetition and variety that will be resolved over the coming week.
Some main features include:
- acknowledging the likely overshoot of the 1.5 degree Celsius target and a commitment to respond to this;
- developed countries to take lead including achieving net-zero by an earlier timeframe than developing countries and achieve net-negative;
- dedicated mountains work program on finance and capacity building gaps relating to mountains;
- finance pledges are not being met, public finance diverted to other places, need to significantly ramp up adaptation finance;
- increasing electrification globally to 35% by 2035, accelerate renewables, energy efficiency, grids and storage, and
- acknowledging the value of cooperation under Article 6.
There is a brief mention of transitioning away from fossil fuels, as well as phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, and an acknowledgement of the work on transition pathways by Brazil.
The recently-unveiled Article 6 Network held a launch event on Friday, at which it presented its State of the Article 6 Market report, calculating that 53 million tonnes of carbon have been transacted by governments through both the Article 6.2 and 6.4 mechanisms. The report went on to estimate that as many as 2.3 billion tonnes could be available by 2030.
On Friday, the UNFCCC hosted a special event to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Collaborative Instruments for Ambitious Climate Action (CiACA) and to consider how Article 6 can be further advanced. You can watch a video of the event here.
Late in the day the UNFCCC also hosted an event looking at what's next for the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism. You can watch that recording here.
Wrapping up more directly relevant news from the first week of COP, we've seen a steady stream of Article 6 announcements. Côte d’Ivoire and Sweden signed an Article 6.2 agreement, and South Korea and Nepal set up an Article 6 partnership. Norway and Indonesia signed a deal to trade millions of credits under Article 6.2.
Germany unveiled a new fund to finance Article 6 projects in exchange for future credits, and Uzbekistan transferred 7.78 million ITMOs from a methane project.
Just before the talks opened, CARICOM formally recognised Article 6 markets as a way to channel climate finance towards the $300 billion goal for 2035. And on aviation, ICAO added four standards to CORSIA Phase 2, with PACM approved conditionally.
In the negotiations
In the morning, negotiators and observers met for informal consultations on the technical expert review process in Article 6.2.
This meeting was essentially a review of all the technical and procedural issues that the process has raised among Parties; it was process-oriented, technical and also addressed the issue of the role of reviewers.
IETA's intervention underlined that because Article 6.2 is a cooperative approach and diverse in nature, elements that may appear to be inconsistent may simply be "different". We also cautioned against addressing issues outside the scope of the technical review process, such as methodologies – the EU had called for Parties to use PACM methodologies in 6.2.
And we also pointed out that Parties may address inconsistencies during the review process but that these fixes are not immediately reflected.
Towards the end of the day, Parties also met for informal consultations on the report of the PACM Supervisory Body and guidance for the Article 6.4 mechanism.
Our observers reported that after a late start, there were some long interventions but which did not introduce substantive points. After 40 minutes there was still a long list of speakers who had not been called, but the chairs asked for written comments and proposals for a draft decision from Parties.
It was not immediately clear whether the session would be resumed tomorrow.
There was also an informal consultation on matters relating to the Clean Development Mechanism, but since we already know where this one will end up, we did not attend.
Today at COP31
Events on Finance (and markets!) Day at COP30 started very early, and our team was spread out over the city to capture as many takeaways as possible.
We joined the EY/City of London round-table on carbon markets and aligning international initiatives, where we were very encouraged by how well our safe harbour paper has been received by the private and public sector voices.
There is a clear need to marry the underlying conditions (including financial, which was the focus here) and build common ground, from UNIDROIT, to reporting, to NDCs, to product-level.
The sheer complexity and fragmentation all this work remains a barrier. But consistency and harmonisation, much of which is being done by government coalitions and public-private engagements are huge steps in the right direction to unlocking capital and project development.
Dirk spoke at a Climate Registry event on the Western Climate Initiative, highlighting how compliance markets are made more durable by getting business invested and then adding political will, and underlining how organisations like IETA can continue to deliver messages that resonate with the public and non-market practitioners.
CNI and IETA hosted a panel on networked carbon markets and CORSIA at the Brazil Pavilion took place one week after Brazil's Inter-ministerial Committee on Climate Change approved the country's Article 6 rules and the general guidelines for the country's SBCE market.
Moderated by IETA's Jessica Doumit, the discussion opened with Brazil's Beatriz Soares (Ministry of Environment and Climate Change) and Ana Paula Cavalcante (Extraordinary Secretariat for the Carbon Market), who outlined the next steps in implementing these frameworks, including the first ITMO authorisations, the role of forests and REDD+, and the accreditation of reduction and removal certificates.
Kathia Caceres (Peru's Ministry of Environment) shared Peru's experience as one of the first countries to authorise ITMO transfers, along with opportunities for South American cooperation. Davi Bomtempo (CNI) made the case for including industrial projects and for the competitiveness of Brazilian industry, and Marie Owens Thomsen of IATA brought international aviation's perspective on CORSIA demand and the role of SAF.
The discussion underscored the importance of connecting Brazil's domestic market to the international market with integrity, predictability and scale.
Tomorrow at COP31
All event times are listed in Antalya time (TST), which is three hours ahead of GMT and five hours behind Singapore time.
The IETA Business Pavilion is located in Delegation Pavilion Area B2, on stand C525. Our Boardroom is in the Delegation Office area C3, stand DO-17.
It might be the weekend, but the helter-skelter pace of events will continue on Saturday, and we have some excellent sessions at the IETA Business Hub for those of you who are here.
First however, what's going on elsewhere at COP tomorrow, and Friday's strong market focus continues:
- Open Coalition on Compliance Carbon Markets (1000 TST, Special Event Room 3, Amphitheather);
- Unlocking Corporate Demand for Nature and Carbon Removal (1100 TST, Think Negative Pavilion);
- Ground truth: Pricing, credibility, and corporate strategy for removal in the Global South (1230 TST, CDR Pavilion);
- UNFCCC High-level Event: Advancing high-integrity carbon markets through crediting mechanisms and partnerships (1300 TST, Special Side Event 6, and online here);
- CORSIA: Supply, Quality & Aviation procurement (1400 TST, StoneX House, Limak Lara De Luxe Hotel & Resort, Antalya);
- Article 6: Bridging research, data, and practice (1630 TST, Special Side Event 6, and online here);
- From Local to Regional Cooperation: Where Are Carbon Markets Heading in Latin America and the Caribbean? (1745 TST, Brazil Pavilion);
- Understanding the activity cycle under the PACM (1800 TST, Special Side Event 6, and online here.)
And back on home turf, the IETA Business Hub kicks off Saturday morning with another terrific US-oriented event:
- Powering Progress: the future of US clean energy policy and the role of the private sector, featuring five members of the US House of Representatives – Sean Casten (Illinois), Don Beyer (Virginia), Adriano Espaillat (New York), Teresa Leger Fernandez (New Mexico) and Emily Randall (Washington). (0900 TST, IETA Business Hub);
- From Pilot to Scale: Accelerating implementation of the PACM through programmatic approaches built around digitalisation (1230 TST, IETA Business Hub);
- From forest commitments to finance: scaling jurisdictional REDD+ (1330 TST, IETA Business Hub), and
- DNA Roundtable: design options for the role of national Article 6 authorities of host countries (1330 TST, IETA Business Hub).