COP29 starts with success on the Article 6.4 mechanism

COP29 started in Baku, Azerbaijan, with positives and negative from day one. This is intended to be the finance COP. The aim is that countries will agree a new climate finance goal, with a new acronym, NCQG (New Collective Quantified Goal), at a level higher than the current $100bn goal. So the theme of finance is all through the COP.

On the first day, there were delays in agreeing the COP agenda, which did not get the COP off to a good start. Also of course, the results of the US election cast a great shadow over everything, and is the subject of much discussion  and speculation. US officials are putting a brave face on the “headwinds” that will be faced, but action in the US will continue at the sub-national level said John Podesta, the US climate lead.

On a positive note, the COP plenary adopted two important documents relating to Article 6 International Cooperation. The Article 6.4 is a new carbon market mechanism for creation and exchange of carbon credits from project activities across countries. The two documents were the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body’s Standard on Development and Assessment of Methodologies, and their Standard on Requirements for Activities Involving Removals. The Supervisory Body at its last meeting in October decided to approve these standards by itself. They had worked hard on these for more than two years but they had not been approved at the last COP, COP28. So it could have been contentious in COP29 that they had done this, but it was approved in plenary on the first day. So more certainty is created in the international compliance carbon markets. The Standard on Removals is important for CCS as well as engineered CDR. It isn’t in the title, but it explicitly includes “emission reduction activities with risk of reversal”, and that will include CCS. The risk of reversal for all techniques, nature based as well, will be managed primarily with a buffer pool of credits. The level of contribution to the buffer pool by project participants will be determined on a risk basis, and in the event of a reversal of a removal (ie forest fire or CO₂ leakage) the buffer pool credits (6.4ERs) will be replaced by project participants at an amount equal to the reversal event. The Supervisory Body will also consider use of insurance or comparable guarantees. IEAGHG has put a lot of effort into inputting evidence base on geological storage into the 6.4 considerations on removals, especially drawing from the hard work put into Clean Development Mechanism’s modalities and procedures for CCS which were agreed in 2011 at COP17. So it is satisfying to see the Standard on Removals being finally adopted and not excluding engineered removals (which some were calling for in the 6.4 process).

IEAGHG is involved in organising an official UNFCCC Side-event on the 19^th November, on Financing CCS. This will include examples from UK, EU, Canada and the success with the Green Climate Fund for Trinidad and Tobago that IEAGHG was involved in earlier this year (see Trinidad and Tobago secures funding for CCS – UNEP-CCC). This UNFCCC event will be in Side Event Room 7. IEAGHG is also involved in organising an event on CCS in the Caribbean, at 5:30pm on 20^th November in the CARICOM Pavillion. IEAGHG’s Tim Dixon is also speaking in other events, including the GCCSI’s event on CCS in the Global South (12:15pm on the 14^th November in IETA Pavilion) and Oman’s event on Engineered Carbon Management (1:30pm on the 15^th November in Oman Pavilion).

Baku is certainly an interesting, friendly and safe city to host a COP in. Baku has the first industrial oil well (from 1846), mud volcanoes which bubble methane, some of which is on fire, and the smell of oil is pervasive in the area. The irony of this history and these emissions is not lost on many of the COP delegates as they seek to accelerate reductions of such emissions globally.