“Colleagues, following years of stalemate, the breakthroughs in Baku have now begun” said Yalchin Rafiyev, the COP29 lead negotiator.

What followed had been a decade in the making, but finally there has been agreement in the establishment of operational standards for a carbon market under Paris Agreement Article 6.
Article 6 facilitates international collaboration to lower carbon emissions and is seen as a vital tool in global climate finance, allowing for two paths for countries and companies to trade carbon offsets.

Article 6.2 allows two countries to establish a bilateral carbon trading agreements, and Article 6.4 a centralised UN-managed system.

Wrangling over the details has held the scheme back, with disagreements on scope, transparency, quality, methodology and assessment; some of which will still need to be resolved; but the adoption of the basic outline is undeniably a breakthrough.

With this the operation of the market moves not a step, but a leap forward.

Simon Stiell, the UN Climate Change executive secretary, summed it up: “Last night, parties agreed strong standards for a centralised carbon market under the UN. There’s more work to do, but this is a good start.”

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