Nov. 19, 2022. Sharm.

Two delegates leaving meeting room 2 in Sharm el Sheikh said money can start flowing in a bigger way in 2023 via the Article 6 mechanisms, boosting the fight against climate change.

CarrZee interviewed six delegates as they left the negotiating room.

Two said more money should flow under the 6.2 strand next year, if the text is approved in the next few hours/ days. Corporations can use 6.2 potentially to meet climate targets.

That’s because the accounting rules give certainty about how to structure deals, where countries collaborate, probably bilaterally, to meet emissions limiting targets.

Businesses may get cost efficient route to mitigation.

Corporations may set two emission reduction targets for each five-year period leading up to net zero in around 2050.

The second, tighter, target could be achieved using high-quality-beyond-value-chain carbon credits. This could otherwise be called a stretch target. It would be over and above value chain emission cuts of the business.

Companies would then be incentivised to invest in greenhouse gas mitigation.

On the nation-to-nation front, CarrZee saw a big delegation from Japan walk into India’s negotiation office, late Friday.

Japan and Papua New Guinea signed an Article 6 cooperation agreement, I have it on good authority.

However, the new UN 6.4 market, the sustainability development mechanism, will probably take another year to operationalize, two of the envoys said.

There is nothing to stop countries doing a deal where governments collaborate on climate policy under Article 6.8, one of the people said.

Industry will be able to work with the text, said one observer of the talks representing business.

A person from a rainforest nation said their team would now examine the text to see if it might spur support to prevent deforestation.

One delegate from a large wealthy-nation group sounded a note of caution, saying it was a bit early to tell how effective Article 6 will be.

CarrZee: While Bedding down some of Article 6 represents progress, envoys could do / could have done better.

It is a huge pity 6.4 isn’t in better shape.

Huge corporations are screaming to get hold of UNFCCC-badged carbon credits, where the risk of being accused of greenwashing is all but eliminated.

The lost opportunity is probably 10s of billions of dollars of extra climate capital in 2023 alone.

(Tweaked headline on Nov. 28)