India, what happened to your “cooperative and constructive” engagement on Article 6? ECO hasn’t seen much of that lately, and was particularly struck by your comments yesterday. It’s as if you carefully read all of our previous articles and decided to promote the exact opposite of what ECO recommended.
First, you proposed to bracket (aka: delete) references to Human Rights and sustainable development in the establishment of the sustainable development mechanism! ECO would find this grotesquely funny if it wasn’t also very concerning and sad. With this, India aligned itself with Iran as the only two countries taking the floor to criticise the inclusion of Human Rights in Article 6.
ECO also heard India say that cancelling credits to deliver an overall reduction in emissions was “illogical”. But what is illogical is the idea that a mechanism, which operates as a zero-sum game, can actually increase overall ambition. Without cancellation, Article 6 will not make a meaningful contribution to climate action. It seems India supports a 100 per cent cancellation on ambition.
Additionally, it sounded as if India was promoting a review of the concept of additionality, except that, unlike many others who have contributed to this discussion, they actually seem to support weaker additionality rules compared to the Kyoto Protocol era. Apparently, India considers that activities are additional even if they would happen in the absence of the mechanism, if they were required by law, or were included in national policies. Not only does India support carrying over junk credits from the CDM, but it seems it actually wants to create more of those!
This brings us to the last issue: the unwavering support of India for the failed CDM. A full carryover of credits and projects from the CDM will do nothing for the climate. It will also do nothing for private investors and market confidence. Carrying over billions of junk credits would be a lose-lose situation. This would weaken NDCs, by using junk credits to meet targets instead of reducing emissions, and keep supply high and prices low in a new market, hence making it harder for developers to implement new projects. This is a measure that only benefits legacy developers.
Who seriously believes that a new developer wishing to implement projects will prefer a system with low prices which rewards investors from ten years ago, rather than a fresh, credible market with rising prices? ECO certainly doesn’t.