MADRID: Deadlock on decision relating to how countries to trade in carbon credits, earned by them through adoption of clean processes, continued at the ongoing UN climate change conference till late on Friday - officially the concluding day of the COP25 . It is, however, likely that the discussions over the draft text would be dragged till Saturday to have some outcome of this mega negotiating round of the global parleys.

Since the heavily bracketed draft text, released on Friday, carried points of all divergent demands from stakeholders, ongoing discussions on the issue - covered under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement - may, in such a situation, require the countries to finally take the call on this delicate issue next year.

Though it carried India's and many other like-minded countries' demand on 'transition' of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) from Kyoto Protocol (pre-2020) to Paris Agreement (post-2020), this point is bracketed - it means there is no agreement on it. If it doesn't make into the final agreement in the form of rules for Article 6, it would be unfair for the countries who earned credits in pre-2020 phase.

The CDM allows emission-reduction projects in developing countries to earn certified emission reduction (CER) credits (each equivalent to one tonne of CO2). These CERs can be traded and sold, and used by industrialized countries to meet a part of their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol. It is expected that the carbon trade mechanism may stimulate sustainable development and emission reductions, while giving industrialized countries some flexibility in how they meet their emission reduction limitation targets.

India's view points on Articles 6 and other key issues were articulated by India's lead negotiator, Ravi Shankar Prasad, while making intervention during informal Presidency stock-taking Plenary on Friday. He told the gathering that the country was "disappointed" to see the extensively bracketed text as it didn't address the concerns of India and many other Parties (countries) to the UNFCCC.

"On Article 6, we would like to highlight that we still don't find a balance between Article 6.2 (on country to country trade of emissions) and 6.4 (on project to project or project to country trade of emissions) development. And whereas the text on 6.4 is heavily bracketed, we don't find a similar situation in 6.2. We also feel that large parts of concerns highlighted by some of the Parties (countries) have been ignored," said Prasad.

He also said, "There is no justification for barring CDM credits from a particular year. We seek seamless transition of CDM credits. Otherwise the private sector and businesses will lose faith in the process. Further, in past we have witnessed embargo on CDM credits from India by some of the Parties. This is not only unfair but distort market significantly. The text has deleted necessary provisions for ensuring equal market access that safeguard that no party resort to restrictive practices and impose barriers".

His remarks clearly show that the negotiators still have many differences to be ironed out. Some of the differences include the crucial issue of long-term finance and technology transfer to support developing countries in their mitigation and adaptation measures.

Referring to finance, Prasad said, "We also feel that the progress on the issues related to finance has been very slow. It has not yielded desired results. We find that there are lot of resistance to the talk of mobilization of 100 billion US dollar, and documenting how this goal has been achieved under the UNFCCC process. There is also resistance to continuance of long-term finance channels, its related agenda items and on the definition of climate finance."

India's lead negotiator also touched upon the key issue of 'ambition' where countries are expected to increase their Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) targets, submitted to the UNFCCC ahead of the Paris Agreement in 2015.

Making India's position clear on NDCs, Prasad said, "We strongly feel that the NDCs are country driven. Therefore, there is no mandate for any top down directions on NDCs. We would like to respect the language that is agreed by all of us during Paris COP regarding NDCs submission, communication and updatation. Of course, the parties are welcome to update or scale up their ambition at any point of time. There are parties which already have an ambition commensurate with the requirement of the Paris Agreement".

