Ambitious promise
The major problem raised at the international level is that industrial development and environmentally unfriendly living habits have emitted greenhouse gases, causing the earth's temperature to rise, creating the risk of global climate change. Many scientific studies have shown that greenhouse gases emitted from industry as well as from daily life include many types, but carbon-containing gases are the main ones and CO2 gas accounts for the highest proportion. Therefore, greenhouse gases are often calculated according to the amount of CO2 . From here, the United Nations established the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to gather the participation of countries in the goal of finding a unified solution to respond to global climate change.
Since 1995, the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC has met once a year, called COP, to discuss climate change response. In 1997, the countries participating in the UNFCCC agreed to sign a document called the Kyoto Protocol. Since 2005, the international community has held a global conference in Montreal, Canada called COP11, in conjunction with the Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol - CMP1.
In the COP-CMP Conferences, two conferences have proposed important solutions. The first is the COP19-CMP9 Conference in Warsaw, Poland in 2013, which decided to operate the REDD + framework towards the goal of limiting deforestation and forest degradation; conserving and enhancing carbon stocks absorbed through sustainable forest management.
The second is the COP21-CMP11 Conference in Paris, France in 2015, which adopted the Paris Agreement on the management of climate change mitigation measures from 2020. The Paris Agreement initiated the establishment of a carbon trading market between emitters and sequesters. Since 2016, the COP-CMP Conference has been supplemented with the CMA between the parties to the Paris Agreement; the COP22-CMP12-CMA1 Conference was held in Marrakech, Morocco.
The main international goal is to work together to bring net emissions to “zero” as soon as possible. Our Prime Minister promised the international community at the COP26-CMP16-CMA5 Conference in Glasgow, UK in 2021 that by 2050, Vietnam will bring net emissions to “zero”. The World Bank called it an ambitious promise and required bold solutions with the help of the international community.
Carbon rights and carbon rights trading
The above international idea formation process shows that, in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the COP21-CMP11 Conference proposed to establish a carbon market between the emitter and the party with absorption solutions. Of course, the emitter must pay the absorber and this is called the carbon rights transfer market (because the commodity is not a carbon object but a right).
Current science has conducted specific research to identify carbon reservoirs and their owners. The results can be summarized as follows: (1) the ocean with a capacity of up to 38 trillion tons from carbonate materials and CO 2 dissolution; (2) land with a capacity of 3 trillion tons from plant photosynthesis (the strongest is forests), decomposition of organic matter, dissolution of CO 2 into wetlands and stored in fossil fuels such as coal, oil, etc.; (3) the atmosphere with a capacity of 800 billion tons collected from greenhouse gas emissions. These reservoirs show that we must change the way we develop and live to reduce carbon from the atmospheric reservoir, collect it back into the ocean and land through plant photosynthesis, maintain water surface area and not use fossil fuels.
Looking at the carbon rights transfer market, it can be seen that there will be many difficulties in operation, specifically including:
1. Clean production and lifestyle always make the cost of providing goods and services higher, which means that profits decrease. Converting a process from “unclean” to “clean” requires a large investment. Therefore, manufacturers keep delaying the change. The trading mechanism on the carbon rights market is the solution to regulate profits between unclean and clean development. This process requires a high level of voluntariness.
2. Carbon markets are global and cannot be solved individually in each country. Therefore, global consensus is needed through international organizations linked to international commitments for joint implementation.
3. Carbon rights are intangible goods, so determining the quantity of goods requires using high-level scientific solutions to ensure accuracy in determining who has emitted how much and who has absorbed how much.
4. In principle, the carbon rights market is a voluntary market, but within a country, a legal framework can be established to regulate it. This is a unique feature: a combination of national mandatory and global voluntary.
The argument is long-winded, but the essence of the problem is that to respond to climate change, it is necessary to protect and develop natural carbon sinks such as forests, land and oceans to absorb carbon in the atmosphere and through the carbon rights transfer market to adjust benefits. Reducing the use of fossil fuels and switching to clean energy that does not emit greenhouse gases is a process that requires the operation of the carbon rights market.
Carbon Rights Market in Vietnam
Currently, there are two funds operating quite well in the world: the Forest Carbon Partnership Fund (FCPF) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF). Vietnam has been a member of the FCPF since 2008 and has been supported by FCPF to implement the REDD + Readiness Project (2013 - 2020). The project aims to build organizational and technical capacity for central and local agencies in 6 provinces in the North Central region, including Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien - Hue.
The North Central Region Emission Reduction Project, developed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, has been included in the FCPF’s list of payments based on results in terms of forest area and quality. Vietnam and FCPF signed the ERPA Agreement in 2020 in Hanoi. Implementing the ERPA is a pilot step in establishing a domestic forest carbon market linked to the world carbon market, while also creating additional financial resources for direct investment in forests, increasing income for forest owners. In addition, implementing this pilot project also helps raise awareness about the value of forest carbon services.
Thus, the carbon rights transfer market related to forest development has been initially formed in international relations. Domestically, the new law only collects a financial obligation from projects that reduce forest cover. Thus, we have only experimented with the issue of forest carbon rights, and have not yet had any impact on the development of clean production and clean consumption. For example, a country needs to solve problems with coal-fired thermal power, gasoline-fueled transportation, food processing with fire, brick or ceramic production with coal... which are still common everywhere. Old production and living habits are still intact and there has been no management movement towards change.
To comprehensively solve the problem of shifting to clean production, consumption and living, it is only possible to operate a national carbon rights market, regulated by a legal framework associated with taxes on unclean processes to financially support clean processes. In addition, the State needs to have a policy to encourage social organizations to launch campaigns on clean living and clean production. Only then can the Prime Minister's promise to the international community to reduce net emissions to "0" by 2050 be realized.
Nghe An is a province in the ERPA agreement area on forest carbon trading, but it is still a pilot program. Hopefully, this program will be transferred to the official phase to create motivation for forest protection and development. Nghe An leaders can completely carry out campaigns on building habits, lifestyles, activities, consumption, clean production, preparing for the expansion of the forest carbon rights market to other production, consumption, and living processes.
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