It has been more than one year since the gavel came down at the last UN biodiversity summit, where almost every country in the world agreed on a plan to protect nature.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework was signed off at the COP15 summit in Montreal, Canada in December 2022. (See Carbon Brief’s in-depth summary of the key outcomes.)
The landmark deal contained a number of goals and targets for countries to achieve over the coming years – such as setting aside land for wildlife, reducing pesticide risks and restoring ecosystems.
In the months since, more nature pledges have been announced, a new biodiversity fund was established and more science showing the impacts of humans on nature has been published.
Countries will gather at the next UN biodiversity summit, due to be held in Colombia this October, to take stock of progress since the deal was given the green light and submit new national plans outlining how they will protect biodiversity.
Carbon Brief has taken an in-depth look at progress on individual nature issues and the key biodiversity updates since the COP15 summit.
- What was agreed at the UN biodiversity summit in Montreal?
- What has happened since the Global Biodiversity Framework was adopted?
- Key negotiation issues
- What do we know about the next UN biodiversity summit?
What was agreed at the UN biodiversity summit in Montreal?
The UN biodiversity summit takes place every two years, unlike the climate COP, which takes place annually.
At COP15 – the last round of biodiversity talks in Montreal in December 2022 – almost every country in the world agreed to a landmark deal to repair nature.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) included four long-term global goals and 23 specific targets, with an overall mission of halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030.
Some of the key targets include conserving 30% of the world’s land and 30% of the ocean by 2030, reducing the impact of invasive species, cutting pesticides, sustainably managing agriculture and prioritising involvement of Indigenous peoples and local communities in different ways.
Alongside the overall framework, dozens of other decisions were made around the more technical aspects of the negotiations, including figuring out ways to monitor national progress and gather finance to fund action, particularly in lower-income countries.
Although the agreements made at the summit are not legally binding, nations also agreed on a plan to report on, review and voluntarily increase their ambitions to tackle biodiversity loss. This is similar to the plan drawn up to implement the Paris Agreement for climate change.
A lack of implementation was widely cited as one of the major factors behind the failure of the Aichi targets, the last set of global biodiversity aims.
Although the COP15 agreement was widely seen as a success, some countries – particularly the Democratic Republic of Congo – felt frustrated and outraged at the manner in which the GBF was given the green light.
In the final stages of the summit, the deal was seen to be quickly gavelled through by summit president, Chinese environment minister Huang Runqiu, despite objections from the DRC minutes earlier in the plenary.
Following the close of the plenary, there were arguments over the manner in which the final approval happened, but all countries eventually supported the deal.
In the wake of the agreement, UN secretary general António Guterres said that “we are finally starting to forge a peace pact with nature”.
Canadian environment minister Steven Guilbeault said that the GBF is a “major win for our planet and for all of humanity”, which will chart a course “away from the relentless destruction of habitats and species”.
The International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity welcomed the “timely recognition” of Indigenous peoples and local community contributions, roles, rights and responsibilities to nature. A statement from the group said:
“We have spoken and you have heard us, let us now put those words into action.”
What has happened since the Global Biodiversity Framework was adopted?
Several events and meetings since COP15 have addressed nature and biodiversity in different ways.
On 15 February 2023, Dr David Cooper took over from Elizabeth Maruma Mrema as the new acting executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The CBD is an international treaty established in 1992 with the objective of conserving and sustainably using biodiversity, and ensuring the fair sharing of benefits from the use of genetic resources.
Before his appointment, Cooper had assisted the CBD secretariat as deputy executive secretary, contributing to a “successful finalisation and adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework”, according to the CBD. He was a lead author of three editions of the Global Biodiversity Outlook and other assessments.
Mrema was appointed deputy executive director of the UN Environment Programme.
March saw the emergence of the High Seas Treaty, a legally binding global agreement for conserving and sustainably using areas of the ocean beyond national jurisdictions – also known as the “high seas” or international waters. Carbon Brief reported that the treaty “provides the framework for establishing protected areas where previously there had not been a clear mechanism for doing so”. (For more on the high seas treaty, see: Oceans.)
The Amazon Summit, held in August last year, gathered leaders of the eight Amazon basin countries, who delivered the Belém Declaration. The document will strengthen the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization to prevent the rainforest “from reaching the point of no return”. The summit’s outcomes were labelled as “hopeful, but insufficient” by various civil and Indigenous organisations for having no specific targets for curbing deforestation.
In late 2023, countries from the Amazon, the Congo Basin and south-east Asia agreed to protect their rainforests and boost nature finance during the Three Basins Summit in the Republic of the Congo. However, experts told Carbon Brief at the time that the meeting failed to reach a unified alliance and was, ultimately, “underwhelming”.
October marked the official end of COP15 with a meeting in Nairobi, which served to finish off some “outstanding business in Montreal” and advance the recommendations from the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) on implementation and review. Delegates also issued a draft recommendation on climate change and biodiversity.
Key negotiation issues
Over the past year, there have been a number of summits, finance pledges and intergovernmental talks relating to biodiversity.
Below, Carbon Brief outlines the progress on the key biodiversity COP negotiation topics and related issues in the months since Montreal – from movement on the “30 by 30” goal to the focus on Indigenous rights.
Halting and reversing biodiversity loss
Back in Montreal, countries agreed that the overall mission of the GBF should be to “halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030”.
The GBF has been likened to the “Paris Agreement for nature”, with some comparing the 2030 goal of halting and reversing biodiversity loss to the aspirational 1.5C temperature limit.
After the GBF was agreed, Carbon Brief spoke to a range of biodiversity scientists who said that halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030 would be incredibly challenging.
A landmark report released in 2019 by the world’s biodiversity authority, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), found that one million animal and plant species now face extinction. This is more than at any other point in human history.
Across the world, populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish decreased by an average of 69% between 1970 and 2016, according to a 2022 WWF report on more than 30,000 animal populations. In tropical central and South America, the animal populations covered by the study fell by an average of 94% over this period.
Scientists also told Carbon Brief that achieving the mission would largely be decided by meeting the targets of the GBF that tackle the direct causes of biodiversity loss.
These include target 18, which addresses subsidies harmful to biodiversity; target 7, which addresses pollution; and targets 5 and 9, which address the “sustainable use” of biodiversity. (Progress on several targets is discussed in more detail below.)
One issue that negotiators have continued to work on since the GBF was agreed is developing a set of indicators for measuring biodiversity loss.
While many people associate “biodiversity” with iconic species and tropical rainforests, the term actually covers the whole spectrum of Earth’s biological diversity, ranging from the organisation of genes within organisms to the communities of animals and plants that make up ecosystems. This complexity makes biodiversity loss particularly difficult to measure.
At COP15, countries decided to set up a technical group to develop biodiversity loss indicators ahead of COP16, spearheaded by Colombia and the UK. Comprising 45 experts, the group has met several times virtually in 2023 and will meet for in-person discussions in Cambridge, England in March of this year.
30 by 30
One aim that grabbed the attention of politicians, media, activists – and even celebrities – at COP15 was the pledge to protect 30% of the world’s land and seas for nature by 2030, commonly referred to as “30 by 30”. It is contained within target 3 of the GBF.
The fight to get 30 by 30 into the GBF was spearheaded by a group of countries calling itself the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People (HACN&P). It is led by Costa Rica and France, with the UK acting as a co-chair for the ocean component of the pledge.
Since COP15, the HACN&P set up a secretariat directed by former Costa Rican biodiversity negotiator Rita El Zaghloul.
During an interview at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai in December 2023, El Zaghloul told Carbon Brief that with the GBF agreed, the HACN&P has shifted its focus to ensuring the most vulnerable countries have the tools required to meet the target.
At COP28, she announced that the HACN&P had created a new “30 by 30 solutions toolkit” and a financial and technical “matchmaking” service. Explaining the purpose of these tools to Carbon Brief, she said:
“Because it was HACN&P that started the 30 by 30 movement, it is also our responsibility to ensure that countries have the sufficient support and tools to meet the target.
“We know that it is an ambitious target, because we have to move from approximately 17% on land and 8% on oceans [that is currently protected] to 30% on both. Many of the megadiverse countries are developing countries and small island developing states, so we need to provide them with the tools.”
Elsewhere at COP28, China surprised delegates by announcing that it was joining the HACN&P. The announcement came from COP15 president and China environment minister Huang Runqiu via videolink at a high-level session on 30 by 30.
El Zaghloul told Carbon Brief that the announcement came after more than two years of talks with China, who were initially reluctant to join the initiative while still maintaining the “neutral” role of COP15 president.
As of the end of COP28 in December 2023, 118 countries had joined the HACN&P. This compares to 114 in December 2022. (There are 196 countries, including the EU, that are party to the CBD. All of these countries have committed to 30 by 30 through the GBF.)
Finance
At COP15 in Montreal, the gavel went down adopting the GBF and its finance package amid controversy and objections from biodiverse developing countries.
The final finance target seeks to mobilise “at least $200bn per year” by 2030 from “all sources” – domestic, international, public and private. For comparison, the biodiversity finance gap for conservation is estimated at roughly $700bn per year for this decade.
Developed countries – along with others that “voluntarily assume” their obligations – are expected to “substantially and progressively increase” their international finance flows for nature “to at least $20bn per year by 2025 and to at least $30bn per year by 2030”, according to the GBF’s Target 19l.
Despite calls from many developing countries for a distinct fund housed under the COP, COP15 requested the Global Environment Facility (GEF) set up a special trust fund. This would be called the “Global Biodiversity Framework Fund” (GBF Fund) and be established “in 2023, and until 2030” to receive “financing from all sources”.
On June 29 last year, the GEF’s governing board approved plans to set up this “game-changing” new fund to finance the Framework’s implementation.
The GEF’s governing board approved plans to establish the fund on 29 June last year. A month later, at the GEF assembly in Vancouver, 186 countries ratified and officially launched the GBF Fund.
At the GEF assembly, COP15 hosts Canada contributed an initial capitalisation of C$200m ($147.3m), while the UK pledged £10m ($12.6m).
As much as 20% of the funds are intended for supporting Indigenous-led initiatives to protect and conserve biodiversity.
Indigenous groups – often sidelined from direct access to conservation funding – welcomed the dedicated allocation. Brazil’s Indigenous minister Sonia Guajajara pointed out that this “should not just be an aspirational criterion, but a concrete target that needs to be constantly updated” and called for “shared governance mechanisms that include recipient countries”.
Separately, at least 36% of the fund’s resources are to support small island developing states and least-developed countries.
At the assembly, Cuba and Honduras called for “simplified processes for obtaining” funding, the Earth News Bulletin reported. At the same time, the DRC, Namibia, Yemen and the Gambia “urged” more direct access to funds and minimising transaction costs.
At a side event on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in September, Germany pledged the final €40m ($43.3m) to put the fund into operation.
On Nature Day at COP28, Japan then pledged ¥650m ($43.8m). While this took the fund’s initial total capitalisation to about $247m, this falls far short of the “at least $20bn per year by 2025” target that developed countries were to raise. The US and EU, who supported and “welcomed” the fund, are yet to commit any new money.
The fund’s governing body will meet for the first time on 8 and 9 February this year in Washington DC to discuss its budget, business plan and how resources are allocated, with projects set to be funded by the end of 2024.
Projects backed by all eligible countries will have to go through consecutive selection rounds for funding based on criteria, including their potential to generate global environmental benefits, alignment with the GBF’s goals and National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), and their ability to raise resources from the private sector.
Not all the money raised will go to funding biodiversity projects directly: it will also have to cover staff costs, travel, consultants, monitoring and independent evaluation.
Additionally, if the fund’s current budget request is approved, it will have to pay the World Bank – the GEF’s host– an indirect charge of 11% on all direct costs for administrative support – a 300% increase from last year.
The UN Environment Programme’s State of Finance for Nature 2023 report, released at COP28, found that public finance still accounts for the majority of conservation spending in the GBF’s first year. At the same time, it found that contributions from biodiversity offsets and credits grew sharply in 2022 as countries including the UK, France and Australia rolled out new nature markets.
The report also noted that philanthropy – “driven by support for 30 by 30” – and private finance mobilised by debt instruments such as blue bonds and rhino bonds grew last year as well. But, it added, these small numbers paled in comparison with $7tn in nature-negative investments made the same year.
Implementation
Ensuring that the targets contained within the GBF are actually implemented by countries will be the major challenge in the coming years, experts tell Carbon Brief.
Details for how the agreement should be implemented – the so-called “teeth” of the deal – are contained within Section J of the GBF itself and a separate document called “mechanisms for planning, monitoring, reporting and review”. (It is worth noting that the GBF and its underlying documents are not legally binding.)
The agreed plan for how the GBF should be implemented by countries follows three key steps – sometimes referred to as “present, review and ratchet”. This closely mirrors the implementation schedule of the Paris Agreement.
Section J of the GBF specifies that countries should present national biodiversity strategies and action plans, or “NBSAPs”, that are “in alignment” with the GBF and its goals and targets. The underlying document adds that this should be done “by COP16”.
Since the end of COP15, France, the EU, Luxembourg, Hungary, Japan and Spain have submitted updated NBSAPs. The UK has indicated it will release its new NBSAP in May of this year.
In September 2023, an “accelerator partnership” to “fast-track and upscale” new NBSAPs was officially launched at New York Climate Week, after first being agreed at COP15. The initiative is headed by Colombia and Germany, with the support of various UN bodies.
As for the “review” step, countries have agreed to conduct a global analysis of whether NBSAPs align with the GBF at COP16 and hold a “global review” of progress at COP17 and COP19.
After this, countries “may take the outcome of the global reviews into account in future revisions and implementation of their” NBSAPs. This is the “ratchet” element of the implementation mechanism.
In October 2023, negotiators met in Nairobi to officially close COP15. The aim of this meeting was to tie up loose ends remaining from the landmark agreement of the GBF in Montreal in 2022.
The event brought together scientific and technical experts to give advice on what should be included in the global review earmarked for COP17 in 2026. Bernadette Fischler Hooper, the head of global advocacy at WWF International, told Carbon Brief:
“The technical experts and scientific experts discussed what should be in this report. So it was very focused on what that report should contain.”
Nature-based solutions
The use of nature to mitigate and adapt to climate change – known as nature-based solutions – featured a number of times in the GBF’s targets.
At COP28 in Dubai, nature-based solutions were also discussed at different stages. The global stocktake text – a key outcome of the summit that showed how countries can increase action to meet climate goals – “encourages” the implementation of nature-based solutions.
A report released in June by the International Institute for Sustainable Development recommended ways to ensure that nature-based solutions will boost biodiversity and ecosystems.
In a list of draft recommendations from the final round of intergovernmental talks on nature-based solutions, the co-chairs suggested ways to support their use.
These include setting up a database of policies related to nature-based solutions to enable learning between countries, analysing the technical tools available to support implementing such solutions and making a how-to guide for accessing finance for these projects.
At COP28, more than 150 companies and financial institutions said they would increase investments in nature-based solutions.
At COP16, nature-based solutions will likely feature in many national biodiversity action plans and will continue to be one of the key talking points, experts tell Carbon Brief.
For example, Spain intends to prioritise a number of different areas including nature-based solutions over the next few years to meet its climate and biodiversity targets, according to its revised NBSAP.
Invasive species
Invasive alien species are animals, plants or other organisms that have spread into places outside their natural habitats. These can negatively impact both nature and people, according to IPBES.
Target 6 of the GBF aims to reduce the establishment and introduction of invasive alien species by 50% by 2030.
Since the GBF was agreed at COP15, there have been advances in the knowledge of the distribution of invasive species across the world and the ways countries can handle biological invasions.
In September last year, IPBES published an assessment report on invasive alien species, which notes that humans have introduced 37,000 invasive alien species.
The report, based on more than 13,000 scientific studies, says that despite this, more than 80% of countries lack national legislation or regulations to address invasive species. However, it outlines three frameworks for governments to manage biological invasions, from introduction pathway management to species-based and site-based management. (For more, read Carbon Brief’s coverage of the IPBES report.)
According to reporting by the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB), the CBD’s SBSTTA Nairobi meeting in October emphasised the need to develop strategies to simultaneously address two main causes of biodiversity loss – climate change and invasive alien species – and to step up collaboration among environmental agreements to implement the GBF.
It also reported that the SBSTTA adopted eight resolutions, including one on invasive alien species. Among other things, such a resolution addresses how to identify and minimise cross-border e-commerce of live organisms or manage invasive alien species by preventing risks from climate change.
The secretariat of the CBD issued a document providing draft voluntary guidance and advice on matters regarding invasive alien species. These guidelines included the best methodologies for managing invasive alien species, such as cost-benefit, cost-effectiveness and multicriteria analysis.
The SBSTTA recommended the use of the IPBES report on invasive species for implementing the GBF, the CBD and NBSAPs. It also called on COP16 to acknowledge the importance of enhancing information availability and accessibility to strengthen the management of invasive species, according to the ENB.
The full IPBES assessment on invasive species could be approved at COP16, ENB reported.
Links between climate and biodiversity
Several experts tell Carbon Brief that there was a marked increase in the attention paid to biodiversity and nature at the UN climate summit, COP28, compared to previous editions.
An event hosted during the summit’s thematic “nature” day saw the hosts of COP28 and COP15 – the United Arab Emirates and China, respectively – announce a Joint Statement on Climate, Nature and People.
The statement included a pledge by its signatories to work towards “comprehensiveness and cohesion” between countries’ national climate policies (“nationally determined contributions” or “NDCs”) and their national plans for nature (“national biodiversity strategies and action plans” or “NBSAPs”). Dr David Cooper, CBD acting executive secretary, says the statement was “very welcome”. He tells Carbon Brief:
“Countries have to now, in the light of the Kunming-Montreal [Global] Biodiversity Framework, develop their national targets and include them in their national biodiversity strategies and action plans, and they are currently doing that.
“It’s clear that in light of the stocktake [at COP28] NDCs will have to be ramped up. So that’s a big opportunity to make sure that the role of nature, the role of biodiversity [and] ecosystems is fully used in that…The need to protect those sinks and so on is also an additional motivation for strengthening the ambition of the NDCs.”
Pepe Clarke, global oceans practice lead at WWF-International, tells Carbon Brief:
“We’re continuing to see closer integration of biodiversity considerations into global climate negotiations, which is a really positive and continuing trend.”
Indigenous rights
According to the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB), Indigenous rights figure in seven of the GBF’s targets, including spatial planning, area-based conservation, sustainable use and participation and respect for the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities.
For example, Target 22 aims to ensure the participation of Indigenous peoples and local communities in decision-making and the respect of their rights over their lands and territories.
After the framework was agreed, the IIFB welcomed such recognition and said it would collaborate to implement the GBF and apply the “monitoring and reporting framework through community-based monitoring”.
In a meeting convened in November 2023, delegates reviewed the work programme for the section of the CBD that aims to respect and preserve Indigenous peoples’ knowledge and practices. They will continue these discussions at COP16.
The working group also looked at creating a permanent subsidiary body to offer advice to the COP and to enhance the participation of Indigenous peoples and local communities in other subsidiary bodies of the CBD.
In a comment piece, WWF’s head of policy research and development, Guido Broekhoven, said one of the goals of the GBF Fund (GBFF), created in August 2023, is elevating funding for conservation actions undertaken by Indigenous peoples.
The Global Environmental Fund, which administers the biodiversity fund, allocated 20% of funds from the GBFF to Indigenous peoples and local communities. The first instalment of the fund is expected to be delivered before COP16, Down to Earth reported.
Lucy Mulenkei, co-chair of the IIFB, said in a press release that “the creation of this fund and its commitment to supporting Indigenous Peoples and local communities is an important and clear recognition of the fundamental role they have had for generations [in] protecting biodiversity”.
However, Broekhoven noted in his comment piece that there needs to be more climate finance directly reaching communities protecting ecosystems, such as the Amazon and the Congo rainforest. He said that doing so “is critical to encouraging all countries to announce ambitious NBSAPs ahead of COP16 and to keeping the goal of halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030 in sight”.
Oceans
In the year since COP15, the world has moved forward on several marine-related treaties and policies, including the High Seas Treaty, an agreement on fishery subsidies at the World Trade Organization (see: harmful subsidies) and a global treaty on plastic pollution. In addition, debates around deep-sea mining have continued at both the national and international levels.
Officially finalised in June, the High Seas Treaty – a legally binding framework governing the use and conservation of international waters – has garnered more than 80 signatures since it opened for countries to sign at the UN general assembly in September. Dr Rachel Tiller, a chief scientist at Norway’s SINTEF Ocean, tells Carbon Brief:
“The path of getting a treaty up and standing and walking, is that first you have to sign it. And that doesn’t mean anything else other than that you intend not to in any way hinder its continued life…You’ve only said that ‘we have an intention of continuing this process and we intend to be part of it’.”
On 22 January, Palau became the first country to ratify the treaty. In total, 60 countries must do so before the treaty can come into effect. During this time, Clarke says, technical preparatory work can be done, but no formal work under the treaty body can be undertaken.
Tiller adds:
“What I worry, and what some others worry, about is now it’s going to be a race to do everything before they ratify – that everybody wants to do whatever they need to do before there’s some kind of legal agreement stopping them or hindering them in some way.”
While Norway recently approved seabed mining in its territorial waters in the Arctic Ocean, debates around such mining in international waters have continued at the International Seabed Authority. There is a “steadily growing number of countries that are coming off the fence” to support a moratorium, or a precautionary pause, on seabed mining, Clarke tells Carbon Brief.
If a pause took effect, Clarke says, “there would also need to be a significant body of work done on the scientific and technical side of things, to better understand the risks associated with seabed mining”. But it is unlikely that an agreement will be reached this year, he adds.
Overall, Clarke tells Carbon Brief:
“There has been quite significant forward progress in terms of the foundational architecture of agreements and government commitments needed to take forward key elements of the ocean policy agenda…[But] we’ve not seen the step change, particularly in protection, that we’re going to need to deliver the GBF in full by 2030.”
Digital sequence information
A new global mechanism and fund for sharing benefits from digital sequence information (DSI) was hailed by many as one of the big wins that clinched the deal at COP15. Digital sequence information refers to data derived from genetic resources, which is often sourced from biodiverse regions and communities who may not always benefit from its publication or use.
The COP decision on DSI established an ad hoc open-ended working group to finesse much of the crucial fine print that remains before COP16.
The group held its first meeting in Geneva in November 2023, where it identified five sets of core questions on how the fund is governed, who contributes to it, who benefits, what “non-monetary benefits” should look like and how the mechanism could work with existing national and other multilateral approaches to benefit-sharing.
According to the meeting report, countries agreed that the fund should contribute to achieving the GBF’s finance target and closing the $700bn biodiversity finance gap, with the COP deciding strategic funding priorities.
Developing and developed countries differed on several subjects, such as legally binding obligations on donors versus voluntary contributions and potential sources of funding, such as profit-sharing or a 1% retail levy on products derived from DSI. Another unresolved issue is how to distribute these benefits: by country allocation, on a project basis or something else.
Japan, Switzerland and the US – which is not party to the CBD – stressed “solely voluntary” contributions to the fund in their submissions, claiming this would be simple and easy to implement quickly.
Countries came together in favour of elements around capacity-building and the fund being used to meet biodiversity-related Sustainable Development Goals and the self-identified needs of Indigenous peoples and local communities..
Brazil, India, Argentina, Indonesia and the African Group maintained that non-monetary benefit sharing should go beyond just capacity building on how to use DSI and could include collaborative research.
According to Third World Network, “a very controversial question” that remains is whether funding allocations should be based, at least partially, on the geographical origins of genetic material.
In its closing plenary on 18 November, the working group adopted a final outcome on possible elements for the mechanism and fund.
But with much of the work still unfinished, they constituted an Informal Advisory Group to carry on intersessional work until the group’s second meeting in August 2024. That group convened online for the first time on 23 January to discuss data governance and DSI databases and is scheduled to meet five more times before August.
DSI developments under the CBD are being closely monitored for coherence with other treaty bodies and access-and-benefit sharing mechanisms, particularly the High Seas Treaty, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) and the World Health Organization’s pandemic preparedness framework.
Amid these ongoing negotiations, groups such as the DSI Scientific Network are calling for all current benefit-sharing mechanisms to be “harmonised” and saying that they should not “hinder” or “undermine” science.
Dr Siva Thambisetty, an intellectual property expert at the London School of Economics and an advisor to the G77+China bloc, tells Carbon Brief that the group’s viewpoint that “biology does not respect UN legal boundaries” is “catchy, but there is nothing natural about DSI use, circulation and storage – the consequences of which are closely connected to infrastructure, power and choice.”
Thambisetty adds that the GBF “must not sideline consensually-formed gains on benefit-sharing” under the High Seas Treaty but, instead, follow its lead.
Harmful subsidies
At COP15, countries agreed to identify – by 2025 – and then “eliminate, phase out or reform incentives, including subsidies” that are harmful for biodiversity.
The agreement also said that these incentives should be “substantially and progressively” reduced by at least $500bn each year by 2030, “starting with the most harmful incentives”.
Harmful subsidies were discussed at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, particularly around fossil fuels.
The global stocktake text calls for the phasing out of “inefficient…subsidies that do not address energy poverty or just transitions, as soon as possible”. (For more on how countries plan to reduce biodiversity harmful subsidies, read Carbon Brief’s Q&A.)
The UN Development Programme recently published a report outlining a “step-by-step” guide to redirecting biodiversity harmful subsidies.
A World Bank report, published in June last year, said that explicit and implicit subsidies for fossil fuels, agriculture and fisheries now exceed $7tn each year. They are “harming people, the planet and economies”, the report said.
Early last year, the UK made moves away from harmful farming subsidies through its new funding scheme for farms in England, which is intended to replace the payments from the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. The UK’s funding scheme was updated with more funding and incentives in recent weeks.
Over the past few months, German farmers have been protesting against government plans to phase out and cut some agricultural subsidies and tax breaks.
In other subsidy developments, the UK and the Gambia were among the countries to recently accept the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement on setting new rules to curb fishing-related subsidies.
The deal – agreed in 2022 – has now been accepted by 55 WTO members, which brings it halfway to the 110 needed for it to take effect.
It might “reach the necessary threshold over the next year or so” as subsidy negotiations continue, according to WWF’s Clarke.
These talks are ongoing and a draft text on curbing subsidies that add to overcapacity and overfishing will be discussed at a WTO ministerial conference in Abu Dhabi in February. Clarke tells Carbon Brief that the fishery negotiations are “complex”, adding:
“Colleagues who have now been engaging with this technical negotiation track have really expressed to me how concerned they are about the fact that this seems to be entering into a traditional trade negotiation, where each country is seeking to advance its own interests rather than deal with a common challenge.”
What do we know about the next UN biodiversity summit?
The next biodiversity summit, COP16, will take place in Colombia from 21 October to 1 November 2024. Six cities have offered to host, but the exact location has yet to be decided, according to the CBD.
Turkey withdrew as host last July after being hit by three earthquakes earlier in the year that killed more than 50,000 people and displaced millions.
It is understood that the CBD was in talks with a number of countries in Europe and South America in recent months until Colombia’s offer was announced at COP28 in December 2023.
The country plans to move away from fossil fuels under its current leftwing government, but still relies heavily on oil production revenue.
CBD acting executive secretary Cooper says it is “exciting” for the conference to take place in a “mega-diverse country” with “very strong Indigenous peoples’ organisations [and] a very strong scientific base”.
He adds that the Colombian environment minister, Susana Muhamed, is a “very inspiring leader” who could boost political will and “momentum in implementing the GBF”.
Muhamad has said that the slogan of COP16 will be “peace for nature”.
Other environment ministers from around the world will attend COP16, but presidents and prime ministers are generally not invited to the UN biodiversity summits. Cooper says that there are currently no plans to invite them to Colombia either. He tells Carbon Brief:
“It is important, though, that leaders are fully engaged. We will only achieve the goals and targets of the Kunming framework through a whole government approach.”
Cooper says he wants to see nations to “come with a strong commitment and strong actions already in place”. He notes:
“The first important function of COP16 is to put the spotlight on countries in terms of what has been achieved, what is being achieved, what hasn’t been achieved and needs to be achieved.”
Ahead of COP16, countries need to submit updated national biodiversity strategies and action plans that better align with the Kunming-Montreal deal (See: Implementation).
China, France, Japan, Hungary, the EU and others have already submitted their plans.
Other issues due to be finalised at COP16 include the monitoring framework for the GBF and a strategy for financial resource mobilisation. Talks on digital sequence information are also due to wrap up, and Cooper says that he wants to see “very clear progress” towards 2025 financial goals.
Another expected announcement is a global plan of action on the ties between health and biodiversity.
Over the course of 2024, meetings of different groups focused on indicators, risk assessment, benefit sharing and implementation will take place. Key SBSTTA and implementation subsidiary body meetings will happen in Nairobi in May.
In addition, 2024 is a major election year for dozens of countries around the world – including biodiverse superpowers India, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil. The DRC also held a presidential vote late last year.
Cooper says that while nature is “less of a political football than climate change”, there is always a risk of “populist politicians or vested interests trying to drive a wedge” between sectors – especially agriculture and biodiversity conservation. He tells Carbon Brief:
“We have to make the case and really try and prevent these communities from being driven apart.”
Road to COP16
| 22-26 Jan | Conference on cooperation among the biodiversity-related conventions for implementation of the GBF | Bern |
| 5-9 Feb | Meeting of the GEF Council | Washington DC |
| 26-29 Feb | World Trade Organization ministerial meeting | Abu Dhabi |
| 26 Feb-1 Mar | UN Environment Assembly | Nairobi |
| 18-29 Mar | 29th session of the International Seabed Authority, Part I | Kingston |
| 10-12 Apr | UN Ocean Decade conference | Barcelona, Spain |
| 23-29 Apr | Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on plastic pollution | Ottawa |
| 13-18 May | CBD Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice | Nairobi |
| 21-29 May | CBD Subsidiary Body on Implementation | Nairobi |
| 17-21 Jun | Meeting of the GEF Council | Washington DC |
| 15 Jul-2 Aug | 29th session of the International Seabed Authority, Part II | Kingston |
| 12-16 Aug | Meeting of the open-ended working group on digital sequencing information | Montreal |
| 10-24 Sep | UN general assembly | New York |
| 16-18 Oct | CBD Subsidiary Body on Implementation | – |
| 21 Oct-1 Nov | CBD COP16 | Colombia |
The post Q&A: What progress has been made on protecting nature a year on from COP15? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What progress has been made on protecting nature a year on from COP15?
Low-income Indian workers, many of them migrants from rural areas hit by climate change, are paying for worsening extreme heat through lost working days and health complications, with the cost equivalent to 2% of national GDP per year, new research shows.
The International Institute of Environment and Development (IIED), a London-based think-tank, worked with local organisations to survey around 540 households of informal workers in three Indian cities: Ajmer, Delhi and Agra. Most had migrated from rural areas to find work in industries such as construction, brick-making, garment manufacturing and food packaging.
The survey found them struggling through long working days with little access to shade, cooling, rest or water, as well as few toilets for women. And even when they go home, many live in makeshift shelters or airless cramped rooms with barely a single fan, bringing almost no respite.
Outdoor workers are losing about 24 days of work a year due to heat, costing them nearly a tenth of their annual earnings, while indoor workers sacrifice roughly 15 days. On top of losing income, they are also bearing the cost of health problems like heat exhaustion, psychological stress and kidney damage brought on by repeated dehydration.
If the survey’s findings are extrapolated to a national level, the IIED researchers estimate that the decline in productivity and effects of kidney disease combined add up to lost wages of $78 billion each year.
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Vishram Meena, 45, from Alwar in Rajasthan, has worked on construction sites in Ajmer for more than a decade, toiling for 10 to 12 hours a day carrying materials and mixing cement in the full sun.
In May 2024, on one of the hottest days, he collapsed after feeling dizzy and suffering a nosebleed. His wife and colleagues managed to get him to hospital where he was diagnosed with heat stroke. He has since returned to the same building work because the family needs the money.
“I went back because what else could I do? We are not machines. We are human beings. The heat is killing us slowly,” he was quoted as saying in a report on the survey’s findings.
“Victorian-era” conditions
Ritu Bharadwaj, IIED’s director of climate resilience, finance and loss and damage, described some of the stories from workers about their experiences of extreme heat as “genuinely horrifying”.
Kusum, a tailor at a garment manufacturing and export unit in Kapashera, Delhi, recounted how the machines for ironing finished garments are in the same tiny room where workers are making the clothes, with steam and hot air building up through her shift.
Fans are too far apart to move the air and nothing has changed in over a decade, she said, adding that “in summer, the unit feels like a furnace”.
“These are Victorian-era working conditions and they’re completely unacceptable in the 21st century,” said Bharadwaj. She called for stepped-up social protection from the government to pay people for days they are unable work due to heat, as well as micro-insurance schemes with payouts triggered by temperature measurements.
This money would help families buy food and pay medical bills when their income dips if they fall ill or cannot work their usual hours due to soaring temperatures.
Climate change-driven heatwaves hit Delhi’s Red Fort market traders
The aim of the IIED study, Bharadwaj added, is to get policy-makers’ attention by showing the scale of damage extreme heat is doing to India’s GDP in an economy whose growth relies on service-led industries. “If the workers within them start falling sick, you know it’s the economic growth which is going to get impacted,” she told a webinar to present the research.
“Whether [policymakers] care about the workers or not, at least they would care about the GDP, and therefore then invest in their care,” she explained.
Labour code leaves out heat
However, Bharadwaj noted that a 2026 reform to India’s labour law bringing a range of regulations together in one code does not include heat-related protections for workers and only applies to businesses above a certain size. She urged the government to introduce a temperature threshold above which all workers would be able to stop their activities.
IIED and its partners have also carried out a similar study in Bangladesh which will be published later this month, showing that extreme heat is costing its workforce the equivalent of nearly 1.4% of GDP.
Shakirul Islam, chairperson of the Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Program (OKUP) in Bangladesh, said the government had introduced stricter safety policies for garment-making companies after the Rana Plaza complex collapsed in 2013. But, he said, these rules are rarely followed by manufacturers, especially at the level of smaller subcontractors.
The workers’ welfare centres that do exist are open mainly during work hours so they are difficult to visit. Some companies also make saline water available for heat stress, which is no good for those with high blood pressure, he noted.
For Indian women workers, a just transition means surviving climate impacts with dignity
Archana Shukla Mukherjee, CEO of India’s Change Alliance, which also partnered with IIED on the survey, said it was time to hold both the government and businesses accountable for finding solutions to the intensifying problem of extreme heat’s effects on workers.
She said that employee state insurance schemes should identify heat stroke as an occupational disease while companies along the whole supply chain should start putting in place heat protection measures, including for informal workers and migrants.
If the tools and mechanisms available to help workers do not reach the most vulnerable and marginalised people, “then I think we are not doing something right,” she said.
The post Extreme heat costing India’s poorest workers 2% of GDP, survey finds appeared first on Climate Home News.
Extreme heat costing India’s poorest workers 2% of GDP, survey finds
A United Nations investigation into deep-sea mining firms will continue after the world’s top maritime court rejected their bid to suspend the inquiry triggered by a US-backed push to extract critical minerals from the ocean floor.
In two orders issued on Saturday, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) declined to halt an inquiry launched by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) into whether permit holders, including Tonga Offshore Mining Ltd (TOML) and Nauru Ocean Resources Inc (NORI), have breached their obligations under UN exploration contracts.
The two companies are subsidiaries of Canadian firm The Metals Company (TMC), which earlier this year sought permits from the United States to commercially mine the deep seabed in an area already covered by its UN exploration licences, bypassing the ISA’s regulatory process.
The inquiry was opened after TMC’s move raised questions over whether its subsidiaries had complied with their contractual obligations to the ISA, which regulates mining in international waters under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. TOML and NORI sued the ISA last June for allegedly targeting them “in breach of due process” and without “good faith”.
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While allowing the inquiry to proceed, the court ordered the ISA to ensure the companies receive due process. Judges said the regulator must explain the factual and legal basis of its inquiry, clarify the procedures being followed and provide TOML and NORI with a meaningful opportunity to respond.
The companies seeks to mine an area called the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, which holds vast reserves of critical minerals like nickel, manganese and rare earths but is also home to a little-studied deep ocean ecosystem with thousands of unnamed species.
In response to the court’s ruling, the ISA welcomed the decision, saying the inquiry “remains in effect” and would continue “with due regard to all applicable legal requirements”.
Last week, during an annual meeting of its member governments, ISA secretary-general Leticia Carvalho said the resources in the ocean floor are “the common heritage of humankind” and upheld the agency’s role as “more important than ever”.
TMC also welcomed the court decision in a statement and claimed that judges ruled to “protect the rights of TMC subsidiaries”.
“Contractors like NORI and TOML, who have together spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the promise of a fair regulatory framework, should be informed of the factual and legal basis of any non-compliance inquiries, understand the procedure being applied, and receive a meaningful opportunity to respond,” said Gerard Barron, CEO of The Metals Company.
Environmental groups said the ruling allows scrutiny of the companies’ actions to continue.
Louisa Casson, deep-sea mining campaigner with Greenpeace, said the “entire litigation has been an egregious waste of time and money”, which was part of the industry’s “textbook distraction tactic” meant to delay the consequences of the inquiry.
“If the inquiry confirms that TMC’s subsidiaries are breaching their contracts, governments must send the strongest possible signal that complicity in unlawful deep sea mining will not be tolerated,” she said.
While investigation is still ongoing, NORI’s contract is set to expire this week and is up for review. Governments asked the ISA to report back and make “make appropriate recommendations” by the next ISA assembly, its main decision-making body set to take place next week from July 27 to 31.
The court ordered both the ISA and TMC to submit a report on how they complied with the ruling by August 31, and called on both to “cooperate and refrain from any action that might lead to
aggravating the dispute”.
The post Top maritime court rejects bid to halt UN deep-sea mining inquiry appeared first on Climate Home News.
Top maritime court rejects bid to halt UN deep-sea mining inquiry
The European Commission has put forward new plans to cut emissions under the EU carbon market more slowly, from 2031 onwards.
On 17 July, the commission presented its long-awaited proposal for reform of the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS).
It recommended a number of changes, including giving companies free allowances to cover their emissions for longer than previously planned, conditional on climate investment plans.
The proposal offers a more business-friendly and “savvy” approach, argued EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra in a press conference.
But critics believe it could “weaken” the system and put EU climate targets at risk.
Alongside the proposal, the commission also announced a new target for electricity to make up 46% of energy consumption by 2040, doubling the current rate of 23%.
This could cut EU spending on imported fossil fuels by €260bn annually, according to the commission.
In this Q&A, Carbon Brief outlines the details of the new ETS proposal – which is subject to negotiation with member states – and explores what it could mean for climate action.
- What is the EU Emissions Trading System?
- What did companies and countries want from the ETS review?
- What is in the new proposal from the European Commission?
- What could the changes mean for greenhouse gas emissions?
- How was the proposal received?
- What is ‘ETS2’?
- What happens next?
What is the EU Emissions Trading System?
The EU ETS is a carbon market, which puts a price on the greenhouse gas emissions of companies in power generation, industry, aviation and other sectors.
It covers everything from electricity generation to steel production, as well as flights within the EU and a handful of other European countries.
Emissions in these sectors have halved since the ETS launched in 2005, according to the European Commission.
A European parliament briefing describes the system as a “cornerstone” of EU climate policy, covering around 40% of the bloc’s overall emissions.
It applies to emissions in all 27 EU countries alongside Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and electricity generation in Northern Ireland. (The UK established its own ETS after Brexit.)
The ETS operates as a “cap and trade” system, which puts a limit on the amount of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) that can be emitted within the sectors it covers.
The “cap” on emissions gradually decreases each year until, eventually, they are expected to reach zero.
The currency of trade within the system is “allowances”. One allowance is equal to one tonne of CO2-equivalent emissions.
At present, around 57% of these allowances are bought by companies in auctions. The EU generated around €43bn in revenue from these auctions in 2025.
The remaining 43% of allowances are given to companies for free, to cover some or all of their emissions.
This is intended to prevent “carbon leakage” – the idea that companies operating in countries with strict climate policies will relocate to countries with looser rules.
The amount of free allowances varies by sector, depending on factors including the level of competition with overseas firms that do not face a carbon price.
What did companies and countries want from the ETS review?
Countries and companies have been divided on how they wanted the ETS to evolve.
Some pushed for more ambition to help meet European climate goals. Others called for it to be rolled back, amid rising costs for businesses.
In March, 10 countries including Italy, Hungary and Poland wrote a letter to the commission calling the ETS an “existential risk” for key industrial sectors, reported Euronews.
Italy had earlier even called for the system to be suspended outright.
France and other countries favoured introducing a slower descent towards bringing the emissions cap to zero by 2039.
Some steel and chemical companies also criticised the cost burden of the ETS.
Other organisations focused on calls for stability and predictability in the system.
In recent weeks, Spain, the Netherlands and five other countries called on the commission to “resist gutting” the ETS in its review, said E&E News. They said the ETS should be strengthened to “ensure long-term investment predictability and regulatory stability”.
Weakening the system could “undermine investment signals and leave Europe more exposed to fossil-fuel shocks”, said a March 2026 briefing from climate thinktank E3G.
Another E3G briefing said the “risk” is that politicians weaken the system as a short-term economic fix, “undermining one of the EU’s main tools for delivering on its industrial transformation ambitions”.
Dozens of investment organisations called on EU countries to facilitate a “robust and predictable” ETS. They said that “policy stability is the cheapest investment stimulus available to the EU”.
In its list of priorities for ETS reform, the NGO Carbon Market Watch said that “now is not the time to backslide” on its aims and terms.
What is in the new proposal from the European Commission?
The commission’s proposal outlines a number of changes to the ETS, to bring it in line with the EU’s climate goal to cut emissions to 90% below 1990 levels by 2040.
The review will “bring relief to industry”, the commission says, while also continuing the ETS’ “essential” role in climate action.
However, others are more sceptical about the impacts it could have on climate action.
Below, Carbon Brief details the main aspects of the proposal.
Free allowances extended
The European Commission proposes to extend free allowances beyond a previously agreed date.
Free allocations were due to reduce from this year and be fully removed by 2034.
However, the commission has proposed to extend this to 2038, on the condition that companies receiving free allowances set out how they will invest in decarbonising their EU operations.
It proposes that from 2031 onwards, 80% of free allowances in the system would be given to companies that have submitted plans for investment in EU decarbonisation.
The remaining 20% of free allowances would only be allocated to those that can prove they followed through with planned investments and achieved the emissions reductions they had previously outlined.
This move is a “step in the right direction”, says Dr Kirsten Scholl, the director for EU affairs at thinktank Epico, but it must not “impose excessive administrative burdens”.
The EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) was designed to replace the existing system of free allowances in the ETS.
It is a tax applied to certain imported goods, based on the amount of CO2 emissions released during their production. It began to be phased in at the start of 2026.
As a result, free allocation is being gradually phased out from 2026-38.
However, the commission has proposed that 15% of free allocations due to be removed because of CBAM should be reintroduced from 2028, to “reduce the speed at which CBAM is phased-in and mitigate the remaining carbon leakage risk”.
The commission says that preventing carbon leakage “remains a crucial element” of the ETS.
Pushing back the phase-out of free allowances and the full implementation of CBAM “risks squandering the EU’s credibility with investors and trading partners alike”, says Francesco Lombardi Stocchetti, a policy advisor on sustainable economy at the Bellona Foundation, an environmental NGO.
“Europe cannot lead the clean industrial transition just by moving the goalposts,” he adds in a statement.
Slowing path to reach zero emissions by a decade
The commission has proposed to cut emissions in the ETS more slowly from 2031 onwards.
This could mean new allowances are able to enter the scheme into the 2040s, instead of ending in 2039 as previously planned.
But the planned changes are still “aligned” with the EU’s 2040 climate target and net-zero requirement by 2050, says the commission.
The overall ETS cap on emissions was reduced by 1.7% each year up to 2020 and then by 2.2% annually since 2021.
It is then agreed to drop by 4.3% over 2024-27 and 4.4% from 2028 onwards.
Maintaining similar rates after 2030 would not be “realistic”, says the commission’s proposal.
Instead, it suggests that the cap should fall by 3.7% per year over 2031-35 and by just 1.7% annually over 2036-40.
This will make the path to zero emissions within the ETS “more gradual and aligned with domestic climate ambition level”, claims the commission.
But WWF says that the proposal would allow an extra 2bn tonnes of CO2e to be emitted. (See: What could the changes mean for greenhouse gas emissions?)
Aviation
The commission has proposed plans to incorporate more airline emissions into the ETS.
The plan outlines that, from 2029, all flights departing from the European Economic Area (EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) and landing in other countries within 5,000km of a point in central Europe should be added to the ETS.
This distance means that the changes would not apply to flights landing in China or the US. (Both the US and China have opposed the expansion of ETS coverage for flights.)
The commission also proposes including emissions from private jets and other “business flights” in the ETS.
It notes that aviation currently accounts for 14% of EU transport emissions. This is expected to skyrocket to around 90% by 2050, given it is more difficult to decarbonise than other modes of transport.
Some aviation emissions have been included in the ETS since 2012. This included emissions from air travel within the EEA and flights departing from Switzerland and the UK.
The airline industry did not respond favourably to reports of plans to expand beyond this scope.
On 8 June, the biggest airlines in Europe urged commission president Ursula von der Leyen not to extend the ETS to cover international flights, saying that it would raise ticket prices.
A study commissioned by Carbon Market Watch found that the ETS encompassing all flights departing from the EEA, not just those within it, would result in a “very small impact on ticket prices and passenger demand”.
Auction money
Under the proposed changes, EU countries would need to funnel half of the money they receive from ETS auctions towards decarbonising sectors covered by the system.
This would amount to more than €100bn in investment for decarbonisation before 2030, says the commission.
Around three-quarters of the money generated by the ETS has been allocated to EU countries since 2013, the proposal notes.
Since 2023, countries have been required to spend all of this money on climate and energy-related activities – at least on paper.
But the proposal says the “transparency and effectiveness” of this mechanism has been “insufficient”.
Currently, only around 5% of the ETS money “directly supports industrial decarbonisation in sectors such as steel, chemicals and fertilisers”, it adds.
Going forward, the proposal says that 50% should be put towards actions aiding clean-energy plans, industrial decarbonisation and improved waste management, as some examples.
A briefing by thinktank Institut Montaigne noted that the money generated within the system for EU countries to help finance the energy transition should be “at the heart” of ETS discussions, amid budget constraints in many EU countries at the moment.
CO2 removals
The commission has proposed integrating permanent carbon removals into the ETS to “give additional flexibility” for certain sectors that struggle to decarbonise. This action was previously agreed within the terms of the EU’s 2040 climate target.
“Permanent” removals refer to direct air capture with carbon storage and similar measures, rather than temporary removals such as planting trees.
The removals would be integrated into the system by increasing the allowance cap by an amount equivalent to the number of removals purchased.
This will set up “additional emission space” for hard-to-abate sectors and also support the “scale-up of the carbon removals industry”, outlines the proposal.
It also proposes that certain companies, such as shipping and aircraft operators, could compensate for their emissions with their own certified carbon removals.
These emissions would not be permitted to “go beyond zero”, adds the proposal.
Sven Harmeling, the head of climate at Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, says that adding carbon removals “would weaken the ETS impact, undermine the carbon price and create new loopholes for polluters instead of accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels”.
The proposal “fails to ensure that only high-integrity removal technologies would be considered”, he adds in a statement.
However, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Prof Ottmar Edenhofer, describes the move as “an important step”, saying:
“For the first time, it creates a credible and long-term investment framework for carbon-removal technologies in Europe.”
International credits
The commission proposes that firms covered by the ETS could make use of “high-integrity” credits bought on the global carbon market from 2036 onwards.
This relates to the EU’s 2040 climate target, in which up to 5% of the 90% reduction in GHGs can come from global carbon credits.
Amélie Laurent, a policy advisor in carbon accounting at the Bellona Foundation, says in a statement that these credits “should be in a strategic last resort reserve, not an excuse to avoid doing our homework”.
Aurora D’Aprile, the EU policy director at the International Emissions Trading Association, notes in a statement:
“For international credits, early preparation on governance and procurement and greater certainty around a pilot from 2031, will be essential to establish a credible demand signal.”
Other sectors extended
The commission has outlined plans to expand the inclusion of the maritime sector in the ETS.
Maritime accounts for around 4% of the EU’s total emissions. The new proposals for the sector include adding certain small ships of 400-5,000 tonnes to the system.
The proposal also outlines plans to incorporate more waste incineration into the ETS on a gradual basis from 2031.
Since 2024, some waste-burning companies have been required to monitor and report their emissions under the ETS. But they did not have to purchase credits.
Now, the commission proposes introducing the sector on a gradual basis.
Under the proposals, companies would require allowances for 25% of their emissions in 2031, 50% in 2032, 75% in 2033 and 100% from 2034 onwards.
Market stability reserve review
The market stability reserve was added to the ETS in 2019 to help stabilise the flow of allowances.
It acts like an overflow container holding extra allowances. If the number of allowances in the market falls below a certain threshold, more are brought out from the reserve to balance things out.
Equally, if the market is flooded with too many allowances, depressing prices, then some are removed and put into the reserve.
The commission has proposed a reform of the reserve, including changing the upper and lower limits for when allowances are released or removed.
It wants to reduce the rate at which allowances are withdrawn from auctions when they exceed a certain threshold from 24% to 12% from 2028.
This means that the permits would be able to stay in the market for longer.
As shown in the chart below, the price of carbon in the EU increased tenfold over 2017-2021, exceeding €80 (£68) per tonne of CO2.
Nevertheless, the commission proposal says the reserve was “effective in mitigating price shocks” on the ETS caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the surge in energy prices after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2021.
UK-EU ties
The EU and UK have agreed in principle to link their carbon markets, but the commission’s proposal says negotiations are still “under progress”.
It adds that the commission “foresees” future financial contributions from the UK to the EU’s ETS, if a final agreement is reached.
Many companies have called for the systems to be linked. In June, dozens of carbon-capture organisations and industry groups signed a letter calling for greater certainty on EU-UK links to ensure cross-border carbon-capture and storage projects are covered, for example.
Switzerland’s ETS has been linked to the EU since 2020.
What could the changes mean for greenhouse gas emissions?
The European Commission says the ETS plays a “crucial role” in meeting its climate targets “cost-effectively”.
The system contributed to a 41% reduction in EU industrial emissions over 2021-23, a decrease of around 800m tonnes of CO2 per year, according to recent analysis from the London School of Economics.
As highlighted in the chart below, the EU’s overall GHG emissions have dropped by 40% since 1990.
Climate commissioner Hoekstra told a press briefing that the proposal is “fully aligned” with the EU’s target to cut GHGs to 90% below 1990 levels by 2040. He called the plan “completely climate-law proof”.
He also noted that no other EU policy has contributed to reducing emissions on the scale of the ETS, describing it as a “phenomenal asset”.
But campaigners and experts are concerned that the proposed changes could slow decarbonisation and put the EU’s climate goals at risk.
Carbon Market Watch says the plans would “severely weaken” the ETS and “risk undermining the achievement of the EU’s 2040 and 2050 climate targets”.
The proposals “would represent a major setback for EU climate ambition, weakening incentives to cut emissions, extending reliance on fossil fuels and putting the 2040 climate target at risk”, says a statement from WWF.
WWF estimates that 2bn extra tonnes of CO2 would be emitted if the proposals were approved in the EU.
Michael Bloss, a German member of the European parliament (MEP) for the European Greens, says the plans would release around 1.4bn tonnes of extra CO2. He describes the proposal as “climate vandalism”.
Chiara Martinelli, the director of CAN Europe, says:
“Every extra tonne of CO2 allowed under the ETS makes Europe’s climate challenge harder and more expensive. Weakening the ETS now is a gift to polluters that have prioritised shareholder payouts instead of investing in cleaner production.”
How was the proposal received?
The European Commission’s new ETS proposal has been met with a mixed response.
Scholl from Epico says the proposal has “important flexibilities that can help address competitiveness challenges and provide greater certainty for industrial investment”. But she adds in a statement:
“Concerns remain about whether the proposed changes preserve the long-term investment signal of the ETS and sufficiently recognise companies that have already committed to ambitious decarbonisation pathways.”
Edenhofer from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research adds that the proposals provide “clarity on the contribution that emissions trading is intended to make towards the 2040 climate target”.
Elisa Giannelli, a programme lead at E3G, says in a statement:
“Today’s proposal might please some, but it risks increasing both the long-term cost and the time needed to deliver the EU’s growth strategy.”
Pepe Escrig, a senior researcher, also at E3G, adds that the commission held onto some of the ETS’ “essential foundation”, but “yielded to political pressure to weaken it as a quick fix to broader challenges”.
This has left the plan “pull[ing] in two directions: strengthening support for industrial investment while weakening parts of the framework meant to drive it”, says Escrig.
Andrea Spignoli, the policy manager of sustainable markets at Bellona Europa, says the proposal risks “weakening green investments” and putting a larger decarbonisation burden onto other sectors that are not covered by the ETS.
Greg Van Elsen, a senior industrial policy coordinator at CAN Europe, says in a statement:
“Free pollution permits were never meant to become a permanent subsidy. Extending them until 2038 rewards delay instead of industrial decarbonisation.”
Lobby groups also had mixed reactions to different aspects of the proposal.
The International Air Transport Association says it is “deeply frustrated” with the proposal.
The organisation’s director general, Willie Walsh, claims the consequences will be “harmful”, “sowing acrimony over extraterritoriality, slowing global decarbonisation and sapping European competitiveness”.
WindEurope says the proposal risks “slowing decarbonisation and failing to channel billions in ETS revenues to industrial electrification”.
BusinessEurope’s director general, Markus J Beyrer, says some aspects “raise concerns”. For example, he says the “new conditionalities for free allocations risk increasing bureaucratic complexity and the uncertain role for international carbon credits”.
What is ‘ETS2’?
ETS2 is a separate emissions trading system to the main ETS. It is due to take effect in 2028 and is not affected by the current ETS review or resultant proposals.
It will operate under a similar system as the existing ETS, covering emissions from transport, buildings and smaller industries in other sectors.
One key difference, however, is that ETS2 will not provide any allowances for free. They will all be auctioned and bought by companies.
On 15 July, 10 countries, including Italy and Poland, had urged the commission to also reconsider the ETS2 during this review. They were unsuccessful.
Similar to the original ETS, the commission believes the carbon price under the new ETS2 system will “provide a market incentive for investments in building renovations and low-emissions mobility”.
However, in June, member-state governments and the European parliament agreed on a number of “safeguards” to support price stability.
For example, if allowance costs under the ETS2 exceed €45 per tonne of CO2, they agreed that 40m allowances will be put into the system from a reserve to normalise the supply – double the amount previously agreed.
A European Environment Agency briefing said the ETS2 will “affect fuel prices and mobility costs” and that money will be syphoned into a social climate fund to “support vulnerable households and investments”.
What happens next?
EU countries will now negotiate over the terms of the commission’s proposal before it goes to a vote in the European parliament.
Ireland, which recently took over the six-monthly rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, has stated that it wants the ETS proposals to be signed off by the end of this year.
A previous document from the council, which represents member-state governments, outlined a target to agree a deal by the first quarter of 2027.
Clean Energy Wire says that this would be an “unusually ambitious timetable for one of the bloc’s most technically complex pieces of climate legislation”.
Politico notes that “months of arguing” is likely to occur.
The post Q&A: What the EU’s carbon market review means for climate action appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What the EU’s carbon market review means for climate action
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Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
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Renewable Energy9 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?
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Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits
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Greenhouse Gases1 year ago
嘉宾来稿：探究火山喷发如何影响气候预测