- COP26: tough negotiations on Article 6
- DMA: Luxembourg negotiates in the interest of digital corporations
- Cookie pop-ups apparently violate GDPR
- Friedrich Merz shows interest in CDU chairmanship
- Glasgow: Tens of thousands demonstrate for more climate protection
- Scholz sees progress with “climate club”
- US government wants to reduce costs for CO2 storage
- Profile: Peter Liese fights for emissions trading
- English skills of the traffic light coalition partners
For a week now, delegates in Glasgow have been discussing how to limit global warming, and on Sunday, the World Climate Conference took a break. Lukas Scheid used the day of rest to draw up a review of where things stand: Much was announced, but little tangible progress has been made so far in negotiations on sticking points such as the “Paris Rulebook”. The success or failure of COP26 must now be decided in the second week. Lukas Scheid and Timo Landenberger are on-site and will keep you up to date.
The EU member states are mainly in agreement: Large digital companies have become too powerful and must be regulated. In the negotiations in the Council on the Digital Markets Act, however, Luxembourg (like Ireland) has pushed for changes that would be in the interests of Google, Amazon, and others. The government is acting according to the principle that “who pays the piper calls the tune”, the domestic opposition criticizes.
Knowledge of foreign languages is not usually one of the strengths of German ministers (except for Peter Altmaier). Yet, how will the potential new cabinet members do at the Doorstep in front of the European Council of Ministers? Silke Wettach has listened to what Olaf Scholz, Robert Habeck, and Christian Lindner have said in English so far – and discovered gems like “to drive with a bike”. Read more in the Apéro.
Till Hoppe
Feature
COP26: tough negotiations concerning Article 6
On Sunday, the hustle and bustle of Glasgow was at rest – but only seemingly. Behind the scenes, hardly anyone was sitting still on the only official day of rest at the world climate conference. The upcoming second week of negotiations is simply too important for a successful outcome of COP26. It is about finalizing the rules for implementing the Paris Agreement – the so-called Paris Rulebook (Europe.Table reported).
The outstanding chapter of the rulebook consists of several paragraphs of Article 6 of the Paris Climate Agreement. Since 2015, the signatories have been negotiating what exactly the global emissions trading and offsetting agreed to in Paris should look like. At global climate conferences since Paris, countries have disagreed on what transparency rules should apply to reporting emissions savings and the extent to which double-counting of emissions reductions should be prevented. In Glasgow, both the British hosts and the EU have set themselves the goal of completing the rulebook.
The question of whether countries should be allowed to sell their emission reductions in the form of certificates in emissions trading, as well as count them towards their climate targets (NDCs), remains a sticking point. This is one of the crucial sticking points of Article 6: It is about a transparent system that is accessible to all stakeholders and in which emissions are reduced.
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