Maximising the Mitigation Impact

On 30 October 2018, the Wuppertal Institute, INFRAS and Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI organised the expert workshop "Maximising the Mitigation Impact of the Article 6.4 Mechanism" in Berlin. The workshop report is now available for download.
Under its Article 6.4, the Paris Agreement established a new mechanism to promote mitigation of climate change and sustainable development. Article 6 of the Paris Agreement mandates a paradigm shift for market-based mechanisms. Under the Kyoto Protocol, all emission reductions achieved under its flexible mechanisms could be used to offset the emissions of the buyer country. The net benefit for the climate was therefore zero. Under the Paris Agreement, cooperation is supposed to result in more mitigation than would have been achieved without the use of Article 6.

The Wuppertal Institute, INFRAS and Fraunhofer ISI currently implement the research project "Article 6 Design Options" on behalf of the German Environment Agency. The project aims to develop options on how to maximise the impact of the Article 6.4 mechanism. The expert workshop served to discuss findings from this research project as well as potential ways forward. The workshop discussed in particular the following questions: What are options to achieve an overall mitigation of global emissions? How can the Article 6.4 mechanism help to increase the level of ambition of climate actions? What role can the voluntary carbon market play under the new framework conditions of the Paris Agreement? Can baselines for mitigation activities under Article 6.4 be established on the basis of best available techniques (BAT) values?

Results from the workshop discussions include:

• Main options to achieve an overall mitigation of global emissions are cancellation or discounting of emission reductions, shortened crediting periods, and stringent baselines. The workshop participants favoured simple options such as cancellation or discounting without differentiating among types or host countries of activities.
• Several strategies are available to foster ambition raising through the Article 6.4 mechanisms, such as strong rules for transparency, strict eligibility criteria for participation, or capacity building. As agreeing on stringent measures such as strict eligibility criteria for participation in the mechanism will probably be politically difficult, all strategies should be pursued.
• Claims that can be made by the voluntary carbon market on its contribution to climate protection depend not only on the quality of the individual activities but also on the quality of the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) of the countries in which the activities take place. There are strong reputational risks if the NDC that is being supported is weak or the activity that is being implemented is not ambitious.
• Setting global BAT benchmarks is impossible for most sectors. Alternatively, the work on default values done in the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism could be pursued.

The workshop report can be downloaded from the following link.