Friday was another hectic day both at the IETA Business Hub and in the negotiating rooms. We hosted another 11 meetings and side events, while Article 6 talks began to bog down amid reports of expanding texts and delayed discussions.

All of which is pretty standard procedure for the end of the first week, as Dirk told our daily Zoom briefing. “You can usually count on there being disarray at the end of week one, because they need the ministers to come in and be heroes in week two.”

The action on Article 6 kicked off with a heads of delegations meeting in the morning, that ran for two hours instead of the scheduled one. Our team said that it’s positive that negotiators are still talking about text, and that the text is cleaner than the previous version. 

The Article 6 contact group held informal discussions throughout the afternoon, alternating with the stream of talks that is dealing with the guidance to the CDM. The informal consultations resumed again in the evening, with the promise of a long night, as Parties went through the draft text in close detail. Several insiders noted that the text (and the number of brackets) appeared to be expanding rather than contracting.

At around 10m talks ended and the co-facilitators asked for updated text proposals by 11pm, with the goal of reconvening the contact group at 1000 GMT on Saturday. They added that a new text will need to be finalised and sent to the presidency tomorrow in time for a closing SBSTA plenary in the afternoon.

There are also some useful analyses of the Article 6 discussions and texts on Twitter by Tennant Reed of Ai Group, Simon Evans of Carbon Brief and Natalie Jones of IISD.

Negotiators also advanced discussions on Article 6.8 (non-market approaches), in which text was elaborated with potential work programmes to take on after COP26.

There may be further late night informal sessions, and we will bring you any news in an update in time for Monday morning.

Friday at the IETA Business Hub

We kicked off Friday with a side event organised by ACR on the importance of carbon capture utilisation and storage, and how it forms a valuable part of an “all of the above” approach to mitigation.

IETA hosted an involving session on the the reforms to the EU ETS and which issues are likely to be important in the political negotiations to come. You can watch this session here.

We then held a well-attended session looking into “What Business Wants from Article 6”. Speakers from mining, law, energy and environmental sectors participated in the discussion, which you can follow here.

Representatives from Argentina’s Misiones province presented their experiences in developing one of the world’s first sub-jurisdictional REDD+ programmes.

We ended the day with a packed room (Covid-19 distancing rules permitting) to “Meet the Voluntary Carbon Market”, a Q&A panel discussion with representatives of the Integrity Council of the Voluntary Carbon Market, the new name for the former TSVCM.

Saturday at the IETA Business Hub

On Saturday afternoon at 1400 GMT Viridis Terra will present “TreesOfLives”, a high-quality nature-based carbon removal product that generates impacts, financial returns, and benefits for all.

We’ll send out a Week One wrap on Sunday, in which we’ll take a high-level look back at the first half of COP26, and preview the IETA Business Hub programme for Monday 8 November.