Prepared for the Bonn Climate Change Conference 16-26 May 2016
Carbon Market Watch welcomes the opportunity to provide input to the discussions on matters relating to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
Years of stalled negotiations leading up to Paris Agreement unexpectedly delivered a strong provision for markets in the Agreement’s Article 6, alongside provisions for non-market approaches. Now, in elaborating the rules, modalities, and procedures for Article 6, it is imperative that Parties learn from past experience with international climate cooperation, especially the Kyoto Protocol, and integrate stronger provisions to ensure environmental integrity, foster sustainable development, and protect human rights in the future international market regime.
The Paris Agreement creates three different frameworks: one for cooperative approaches in the implementation of NDC’s; one for a new “mechanism to contribute to the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and support sustainable development” (SDM), and one framework for non-market approaches to sustainable development.
A clear overall structure for how these provisions relate to each other and are covered by the common transparency regime in Article 13 will be essential to overall efforts towards achieving the objective to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels and to achieve a “balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks in the second half of this century”.
In elaborating this overall structure, it will be important that one provision does not undermine others and that each be equally robust. Furthermore, while the framework for non-market approaches does not imply international transfer of mitigation outcomes, it is important to put in place safeguards for transparency and international oversight, in order to promote sustainable development and to uphold human rights.
Carbon Market Watch recommendations for Article 6
Cooperative approaches (Art. 6 (1-3))– Establish robust rules for linking Emission Trading Systems – Establish robust accounting rules to prevent double counting and generation of future “hot air” – Ensure transparency and good governance – Ensure social and environmental integrity
SDM (Art.6 (4-7))– Establish robust accounting rules to prevent double counting – Ensure net atmospheric benefits – Develop standards that deliver real, permanent, additional and verified mitigation outcomes – Ensure the SDM’s contribution to sustainable development – Ensure transparency and good governance – Establish a SDM grievance mechanism – Establish participatory processes and regulatory frameworks guaranteeing effective civil society and stakeholder participation
Framework for non-market mechanisms (Art. 6 (8-9))– Ensure transparency and good governance – Ensure social and environmental integrity – Ensure contribution to sustainable development – Uphold human rights |
Read recommendations in full here
