Rules of the Paris Agreement

The French government has published a small briefing about the rules of the UNFCCC Paris Agreement1. At COP 26 in November 2021 the UNFCCC plans to decide on the rules of Article 6 in the Paris Agreement, which includes the prolongation of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) type activities.

A new report published last November2 updates the numbers on the quantity of CDM credits that could be transitioned to post-2020 if no restrictions are adopted under Article 6. The transition of emission rights issued under the CDM for use by Parties towards their NDCs is a key outstanding issue for Article 6 negotiations at the UNFCCC.

To inform the ongoing negotiations, the report set out estimates of the potential emission rights supply by two groups of modelling teams, from research institutes in Japan and Germany. The report presents an updated analysis of the potential supply of emission rights issued for emission reductions occurrining in the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol between 1 January 2013 and 31 December 2020 based on a selection of possible restrictions for their transition.

The analysis indicates that the supply potential for emission rights for emission reductions in or after 2013, in the absence of any restrictions, is in excess of 4 billion. Environmental NGOs are very concerned that governments will agree on weak rules at COP 26 and allow a continuation of false climate solutions, as described in the attached article. Environmental NGOs in Sweden are against the use of such flexible mechanisms for the NDCs from Sweden and the EU.

Compiled by Reinhold Pape

1. https://www.tresor.economie.gouv.fr/Articles/ed92a1e7-6eb5-4518-8ac3-a54...

2. https://newclimate.org/2020/11/25/cdm-supply-potential-for-emission-redu...

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