UN climate body adopts new guidelines to strengthen emission-reduction assessment of projects, the mechanism to help countries cut emissions

NEW DELHI: The UN climate change body, responsible for setting up a global carbon market under the Paris Agreement, has adopted new standards to guide how emission-reducing projects measure their impact. It will allow countries, including India, to raise climate ambition and implement national action plans more affordably.

Known as the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism (PACM), it will enable countries and other non-state stakeholders to work together on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by generating high-integrity carbon credits that support global efforts to fight climate change.

The move comes at a time when India has also taken an important step to ensure that all its traditionally high-emission industries — such as aluminium, cement, and pulp and paper — to reduce their GHG emissions to meet specific targets under the compliance mechanism of the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme, 2023.

The new standards, adopted by the UN body in its May 12-16 meeting held in Bonn, Germany, will also help India finalise its draft policy on the issue, which was notified last month to bring hard-to-abate industries on board to reduce their GHG emission intensity, beginning 2025-26.

Two key specific standards, adopted during the meeting, include a standard for estimating the emissions that would have happened without a project under the mechanism (known as the ‘baseline’) and another accounting for any unintended increases in emissions that might happen elsewhere as a result of a project (known as ‘leakage’).

“They are key to ensuring that carbon credits issued under the PACM are ambitious, real, additional, and verifiable... The outcome of this meeting paves the way for methodologies under the PACM to accelerate implementation,” said the UN climate change body in a statement on the decisions adopted in Bonn.

“This was a very significant meeting. We finally adopted a groundbreaking decision ensuring crediting levels are set consistently with a pathway to net neutrality, through a process of minimum downward adjustment of crediting levels over time,” said Martin Hession, chair of the supervisory body.

The rules, adopted by the UN supervisory body, identify and encourage opportunities for verifiable emission reductions, attract funding to implement them, and allow cooperation among countries and other groups to conduct and benefit from these activities.