By Mathew Carr
Nov. 10, 2021 — Glasgow — Ryuzo Sugimoto is pleased Japan’s carbon market – the Joint Crediting Mechanism – is becoming a model for the world under the Paris climate deal.
The market has diffused decarbonizing technologies and infrastructure that contribute to sustainable development of partner countries. See the map below.
That’s also the aim of the yet-to-be completed 6.2 negotiations of the talks, which allow countries to collaborate, as they seek to try save a climate that’s still being stoked by near-record levels of heat-trapping gas, across the globe.
Sugimoto, director of the environment ministry’s international cooperation and sustainable infrastructure office, says the JCM market is helping Mongolia improve agricultural practices and in Vietnam it’s easing access to water.
It shows carbon markets can not only have important positive impacts on emission levels, but also sustainable development goals (SDGs), he said in an interview at the COP26 talks in Glasgow.
His view seems completely at odds with environmental lobby groups, including Friends of the Earth, who are deeply skeptical of markets … labelling them as “dangerous distractions”.
The JCM has been criticised for being anticompetitive because the projects are linked to the sale of Japanese technology. Paris 6.2 will be structured in a better way (hopefully) that allows for fair competition between companies seeking to provide the technology.
Despite the criticism, if you go to page 11 of the Friends of the Earth document linked above, there is some hope for a meeting of minds, because the JCM ticks some of the boxes required.
(Adds context and slides; more to come, I hope)
How JCM relates to Paris
How a Carbon Market Can Help Meet Sustainable Development Goals