Oh Well!! COP 29 Leaders Jam Through "Carbon Offsets" Plan With Slim-To-No Discussion On Day One Of Confab
Diplomats have greenlit key rules that govern the trade of “carbon credits”, breaking a years-long deadlock and paving the way for rich countries to pay for cheap climate action abroad while delaying expensive emission cuts at home. The agreement, reached late on the first day of Cop29 in Azerbaijan, was hailed by the hosts as an early win at climate talks that have been snubbed by prominent world leaders and clouded by the threat of a US retreat from climate diplomacy after Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.
But critics have warned the rules were rushed through without following proper process. “We welcome this positive momentum,” said Mukhtar Babayev, the president of Cop29, praising a “spirit of compromise that I hope will inspire all our work here in Baku”.
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Isa Mulder, a policy expert at the nonprofit group Carbon Market Watch, said that adopting the rules on the first day of the summit without discussion “undermined trust” in the UN climate conference process. “Kicking off Cop29 with a backdoor deal … sets a poor precedent for transparency and proper governance,” she said. The rules are expected to reduce the risk of double-counting emissions – a big concern of critics – and include stronger safeguards to protect human rights.
Critics of carbon markets have pointed to a history of offset projects overpromising and underdelivering, with wildfires burning through forests that were supposed to be protected and emissions from renewable energy projects being counted on balance books even though they would probably have been built anyway. Erika Lennon, an attorney at the Centre for International Environmental Law, said: “We’ve seen over and over again how carbon markets are not doing what they claim to be doing, as well as market projects that violate people’s rights.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/11/critics-say-approval-of-climate-credits-rules-on-day-one-of-cop29-was-rushed