Opinion: Carbon markets will not help stop climate change

13 December 2019: Dennis Clare, the president of the Institute for Energy and Climate Strategies and an adviser to SIDS at COP25, writes from Madrid that a major stumbling block has been agreeing on the rules for carbon trading established under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Mr. Clare, however, is not only of the opinion that negotiations should be sped up, but that they are focusing on the wrong market mechanism altogether.

The use of internationally transferred mitigation outcomes, he asserts, has not proven successful in the past. Moreover, the stubborn preference for carbon trading demonstrates an absence of a paradigm shift in the approach to averting the climate crisis. While countries prioritize decarbonizing their economies “at a lower cost”; Mr. Clare explores the question of whether carbon trading actually “lowers the overall costs of the work to be done”.

To read the full opinion piece, follow the link to the Climate News website.