UN Climate Change News, 2 August 2018 - During the last Asia-Pacific Climate Week in Singapore in July, a side event took place titled “Collaborative Instruments for Ambitious Climate Action (CI-ACA): Potential for a Regional Carbon Market in Asia-Pacific”.
The event was an opportunity for countries that are already on board with CI-ACA to share their experience and for new ones to manifest their interest in considering carbon pricing instruments.
To make the discussions more engaging, a workshop approach was adopted, which allowed for two separate groups to brainstorm on benefits and opportunities as well as threats and weaknesses on carbon markets approaches and adoption of carbon pricing instruments. The discussions were guided by experts and lead to very interesting exchange of ideas an experience.
Overall, it was agreed that among the main benefits and strengths of adopting carbon pricing measures is the direct link with higher carbon emissions reduction as well as the strong signal that is sent to the economy. It also provides a good revenue generating activity and opportunity for investing in clean energy. Several examples were given by participants on the positive impact of measures adopted, particularly in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Thailand and Singapore, and specifically how it directly contributes to the achievement of NDCs.
Opportunities were identified particularly in terms of incentives, capacity building and introduction of Science Based Targets and Carbon Disclosure.
The group did not shy away in identifying also some weaknesses such as the complexity of the institutional framework, the lack of capacity in most country for applying measures and lack of clear policy guidance. It was also pointed out how RE opportunities in most countries are still limited to generate carbon credits domestically and the overall lack of international standardized methodologies to set the benchmark.
Overall, it was felt that the discussions were very productive and several countries approach the CI-ACA team to explore the possibility of applying the approach in their own jurisdiction!
