Article 6 is an obscure and highly technical part of the Paris Agreement, but it is important and worth taking the time to understand.
In the worst possible scenario, the rules could let the world’s largest emitters, both countries and companies, off the hook entirely.
It outlines a cooperative approach to using credits from emissions reduction projects, known in the Agreement as ‘international transferred mitigation outcomes’.
The most important thing to understand about climate action is that to prevent the world from warming further, virtually all use of coal, oil and gas has to stop and all greenhouse gas emissions must be in balance.
But between now and that point, commonly known as ‘net zero’, it may be cheaper for some countries to reduce emissions faster than others.
A carbon offset is a reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases to compensate for emissions made elsewhere.
Because the Emissions Reduction Fund didn’t make these projects happen in any real sense a purchaser cannot say that by buying the credit they haven’t driven any environmental benefit to offset their own emissions.
At the international level this becomes even more difficult, and poor standardisation and verification of emissions reductions make it difficult to track whether or not a quantifiable reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide has occurred.
To make matters worse, a significant quantity of emissions reduction credited under these schemes are based on storing land-based carbon.
Carbon credits tend to be treated the same whether they are renewable energy projects, energy efficiency projects, afforestation projects or avoided deforestation projects.
On the other hand, carbon flows relatively freely between oceans, land , and the atmosphere on relatively short timescales as part of the fast carbon cycle.
The only permanent solution for moving carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere is geological storage, that is, putting all of the emissions from fossil fuel combustion back underground.
At the same time, we need to halt and reverse deforestation, slash emissions from agriculture and restore ecosystems across the world.
The bottom line is that we need strong, bold action this decade to move away from reliance on coal, oil and gas.