COP29 adopts new UN guidelines for global carbon credit trading

At COP29, governments approved new UN standards for international carbon markets, paving the way for countries to trade credits to meet their climate targets, News.Az reports citing TRT World.

At the UN climate talks in Azerbaijan on Monday, nearly 200 nations agreed on crucial ground rules for setting a market in motion, but further negotiation is needed before the overall framework is finalised.

US president-elect Trump has said he would again pull the US out of the global Paris climate agreement, which lays the groundwork for the planned UN-backed carbon market.

However, Juan Carlos Arredondo Brun, a former climate negotiator for Mexico who now works for carbon market data and souring company Abatable, said the endorsement "will bring us closer to operationalising the carbon market before any single party may decide to move away from the Paris Agreement".

Monday's deal could allow a UN-backed global carbon market, which has been years in the making, to start up as soon as next year, one negotiator said.

Carbon credits theoretically allow countries or companies to pay for projects anywhere on the planet that reduce CO2 emissions or remove it from the atmosphere and use credits generated by those projects to offset their emissions.

Examples of projects could include the cultivation of CO2-absorbing mangroves or the distribution of clean stoves to replace polluting methods of cooking in poor rural communities.

The market could be one route for US companies to keep participating in global efforts to address climate change, even if Trump were to quit the Paris accord. If that happened, US firms could still buy credits from the UN-backed market to meet their voluntary climate targets.

While the standards approved in Baku were aimed at allaying concerns that many projects do not deliver the climate benefits they claim, campaigners said they fell short in areas including protecting the human rights of communities affected by projects.

News.Az