COP29 agrees deal to kick-start global carbon credit trading

24/11/2024 6:31

        Countries agreed a deal at the COP29 climate conference on Saturday on rules for a global market to buy and sell carbon credits that proponents say will mobilise billions of dollars into new projects to help fight global warming.
        
        The agreement, clinched roughly a decade after international talks on forming the market began, hinged on how to ensure credibility in the system so it can reliably lead to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change.
        
        Carbon credits are created through projects such as planting trees or putting up wind farms in a poorer country that receive one credit for every metric ton in emissions that they reduce or suck out of the atmosphere. Countries and companies can buy those credits to help reach their climate goals.
        
        After striking an agreement early in the two-week conference that will allow a centralised U.N. trading system to launch as soon as next year, negotiators spent much of the rest of their time in Azerbaijan trying to hammer out details of a separate bilateral system for countries to trade directly.