Today is Tuesday, October 31, 2023.
As COP-28 will happen soon in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. And about one year ago COP-27 happened in Egypt.
What about analysing that region, known as MENA (Middle East and Northern Africa), from the perspective of efforts to mitigate climate change?
A few days ago, IETA issued a 5-pages Policy Brief titled "Carbon Markets in the MENA region", quoting developments in some MENA countries over the past twelve months. Here is the situation:
(1) Egypt, a carbon trading platform with the Egyptian stock exchange (EGX) was set-up and a registry of projects is expected for soon;
(2) Jordan is discussing cooperative approaches under Article 6 and other international carbon markets;
(3) Morocco, agreement with Switzerland for the transfer of ITMOs under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and implementation of Article 6.2 with support from Norway;
(4) Saudi Arabia, refer to our post; and
(5) United Arab Emirates (UAE), quite a lot of initiatives involving capital markets, AirCarbon Exchange (ACX), Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, the UAE Carbon Alliance and MOU's with several African countries.
Specifically about the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM), across 18 countries in the region, 10 have projects registered with Verra and 7 registered with Global Carbon Council, based in Doha, Qatar. Credits are primarily generated by activities such renewable energy and energy efficiency and total number of projects is still relatively small, about 60.
Key message is that carbon pricing should increase significantly in order to mobilise investment in emissions reductions and removals.
Click at the image below for this full Policy Brief by IETA.
IETA, is a non-profit business association, since its foundation in 1999 has been developing policy and market frameworks for VCMs.
