With the clock ticking to the end of the Glasgow COP26 climate summit, a key element remains unresolved: the rules for global carbon markets that experts believe are critical to cutting the emissions behind climate change.
The so-called “Article 6” rules have been outstanding for years, a subject of fierce debate and a contributor to the derailment of the previous COP in Madrid in 2019, which was broadly judged a failure.
China’s climate envoy Xie Zhenhua on Wednesday backed a breakthrough. “We hope that at this COP we can finalise the outstanding issues of Article 6 and build a global carbon market, which would be highly helpful to drive the cost down, for the global effort of emissions cutting, and help the world achieve its temperature goals,” he said, as the US and China pledged to co-operate.