ECO welcomes New Zealand coming in from its years in the wilderness and finally accepting that carrying over old and dodgy credits from previous commitment periods of the Kyoto Protocol is a bad idea.
New Zealand has quite the stash of these, but Minister for Climate Change James Shaw has confirmed to Australian media that carrying over these credits would make it challenging for the world to achieve the goal of the Paris Agreement. ECO is pleased to agree with the Minister, that this would be a bad idea.
This is a refreshing change, especially from a country that previously earned infamy for its creative accounting.
All eyes remain on Australia, which is silent on whether it will follow suit, and whether the Paris Rulebook will end up allowing it to do so. Australia expects a surplus of around 300 million tonnes of carbon credits by 2020. ECO suspects that it plans to use these to meet its Paris Agreement target without having to cut emissions.
It is these kinds of loopholes we expect the Paris Rulebook to close.
ECO looks forward to the Minister continuing with this positive, loophole-slaying attitude as he co-chairs Article 6 negotiations in the coming days.
