Carbon market rules being pursued by Australia and Brazil aren't in line with the 1.5C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement, according to 31 countries who broke from tense discussions at the UN climate talks in Madrid.
Led by Panama and nicaragua ,, they published some 11 benchmarks i was told that represented the “minimum” standard to ensure integrity of the global carbon trading plan because of come into effect the coming year.
The ‘San Jose principles’ were signed by 30 other countries including France, Germany, the united kingdom, Spain and New Zealand.
Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, Costa Rica’s environment minister, said the principles present “a meaning of success” on the new carbon market rules and “keep the door open” for limiting warming to at least one.5C.
“Anything below these San Jose principles won’t create a fair and powerful carbon market,” he said. “The diverse number of countries supporting these principles know we want a just outcome to keep the fir.5C target at your fingertips.”
The principles rule out ‘double counting’ and also the use of credits in the Kyoto Protocol-era system that's being superseded. The principles don’t explicitly name any countries., but the former is really a position being pursued through the Brazilian government while Australia may be the only country openly planning to use Kyoto credits to satisfy its 2030 emissions goal.
The publication of the principles during ongoing negotiations in the Cop25 talks indicates the amount of frustration among countries seeking strong rules. Earlier on Friday, Rodriguez named Australia, Brazil and also the US as countries pushing “totally unacceptable” positions.
The principles also the market must achieve an “overall mitigation” in global emissions and really should be assessed using transparent, publicly accessible accounting methods.
They didn’t include language on human rights in communities affected by pro-climate developments. Those safeguards have been eroded and appearance to have few champions among the governments in the Madrid talks.
The principles were initially agreed in the pre-COP negotiating session held in October in San José, Panama and nicaragua ,, but only released now because the carbon markets talks continue to stall at the ongoing summit.
“If financial markets are to increase ambition, the guidelines have to be as robust as the San Jose Principles,” said Franz Perez, Switzerland’s lead climate negotiator.
The group, which calls itself the Unconventional Group, also includes Paraguay, Perú, Vanuatu, Luxembourg and also the Cook Islands. They're encouraging other countries to join the coalition.
The discharge of the benchmarks may come as the weather talks spilled into Saturday inside a bid to find agreement on several key points of dispute. At the time of writing, a stock-taking plenary was scheduled to occur at 8am today, accompanied by a closing plenary at 9am. This is likely to change, however.
