The International Initiative for Development of Article 6 Methodology Tools (II-AMT) is an international expert-led process to enable the alignment of approved Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) baseline and monitoring methodologies with rules and principles for collaboration under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Experts from all continents are bringing different perspectives from their knowledge of climate policies and practices in key regions combined with long-standing expertise in CDM methodologies. The group of experts is developing so-called ‘Article 6 methodology tools’ reflecting the Article 6 requirements. The tools can be added to existing baseline and monitoring methodologies in a modular fashion. In this way, the rapid operationalisation of market-based cooperation under Article 6 will be enabled. Article 6 methodologies then do not need to be developed “from scratch”, which would take many years and would require significant financial and human resources.
The Initiative is currently in its development phase, which will run until March 2023. As a part of the development phase, the II-AMT sought feedback from all Article 6 stakeholders through a public consultation that ran between 15 November 2022 and 16 January 2023. The experts are currently working on revising the draft tools and NDC guidance based on the comments received, with the goal to publish the final versions in March 2023.
Background & Rationale
The decision accompanying the Paris Agreement (PA) states that international cooperation under Article 6.2 and 6.4 of the Paris Agreement should build on the experiences gained through the Kyoto Mechanisms, including the CDM. Current CDM baseline and monitoring methodologies are seen by many observers as unable to reflect new requirements for robust market-based collaboration as per Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. As CDM methodologies were developed in the context of the Kyoto Protocol, they do not consider host country Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) targets, nor all existing or planned mitigation policies, and they do not ensure consistency of mitigation action with the long-term goal of the Paris Agreement. But discarding the several hundred CDM methodologies needs to be prevented. Even if the funding necessary for the development of new Article 6 methodologies could be harnessed, the time required would lead to a gap in implementation of Article 6 activities. This would be detrimental for the implementation of NDCs and undermine the ambition increase urgently required under the Paris Agreement.
What we do
Perspectives Climate Research convenes an international team of leading baseline and monitoring methodology experts from different regions to develop a set of “Article 6 methodology tools”. The international team of experts includes:
- Axel Michaelowa, Perspectives Climate Research, Switzerland
- Clayton Munnings, Munnings Consulting, US
- Derik Broekhoff, Stockholm Environment Institute, US
- Francois Sammut, Carbon Limits, Norway
- Jessica Wade-Murphy, Atmosphere Alternative, Colombia
- Kentaro Takahashi, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), Japan
- Martha Ntabadde Kasozi, freelance consultant and member of the CDM methodologies panel, Uganda
- Naoki Matsuo, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), Japan
- Paula Macías Díaz, Carbon Limits, Norway
- Randall Spalding-Fecher, Carbon Limits, Norway
- Sina Wartmann, independent consultant for MRV and Transparency, Germany
OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT PHASE
The outcomes of the conceptualisation phase (Phase I) served as basis for the ongoing development phase. The development phase is envisaged to come to an end in March 2023. The development of the outputs is guided by the following principles and guardrails:
- Adherence to well-known and established principles for carbon crediting, including, inter alia conservativeness, transparency, accuracy, consistency, and comparability
- Alignment with the Article 6.2 guidance on cooperative approaches
- Alignment with the Article 6.4 rules, modalities and procedures (RMPs)
The respective tools are stand-alone tools for additionality determination, baseline setting and MRV under Article 6 for project and programme-level activities and do not cover sectoral or policy-level interventions. In the medium- to long-term, further refinement of the tools may be undertaken, consistent with the differences of activity types.
THE INITIATIVE HAS BEEN GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY:
- African Development Bank Group (AfDB)
- Institute for Global Environmental Studies (IGES)
- Japan Ministry of the Environment
- Swedish Energy Agency (SEA)
- UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
