IETA welcomes the decision today by UNFCCC negotiators in Bonn to send to this year’s Conference of the Parties (COP) a set of updated draft rules to operationalise Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

The draft rules will be discussed by nations at the COP25 meeting in Santiago, Chile, in December.

IETA urges negotiators to ensure that the rules are fully fleshed out for approval at the annual climate summit, to give the global business community sufficient time to prepare before the rules to take effect.

“The COP has already acknowledged that in addition to public funding, nations must leverage vast sums of money from the private sector to help reach the goals of the Paris Agreement,” said Dirk Forrister, IETA’s CEO. “A complete set of Article 6 rules are critical to create the transparency and security that these funds need in order to flow.”

Article 6 of the Paris Agreement lays out the framework for international market mechanisms that would help countries achieve deep reductions in emissions from 2020, with the goal of achieving global net zero emissions in the second half of this century.

The text under discussion covers issues including the legal basis for emissions reductions, accounting for transfers of emissions reductions, rules for project-based reductions and non-market-based approaches.

“It’s good to see that Parties have made progress beyond the Katowice texts,” said Stefano De Clara, International Policy Director at IETA. “We’re hopeful that this draft will constitute a good basis for continuing the work in Santiago.”

At last year’s COP in Katowice, Poland UNFCCC delegates failed to reach agreement on rules for international carbon markets, despite the efforts of the Polish presidency to create a streamlined set of draft decisions.

Over the past two weeks in Bonn, negotiators have focused on ensuring the draft rules reflect all positions.

“We expected to see largely technical work aimed at addressing the ambiguities in the two sets of draft texts that emerged from Katowice,” De Clara said. 

“Fundamental issues remain to be decided,” he added. “The work of this session was not to complete work on those issues, but to produce a technical text that can now be forwarded to the political decision process at COP25.”

Parties will meet in Santiago from 2-13 December to negotiate and approve the draft text.