Key UN body launches consultation on carbon removals methodology

The UN body tasked with finalizing guidelines for a global carbon market under Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement is making some progress on methodology development and the incorporation of carbon removal technologies, it said in a statement this weekend.

At its fifth meeting held in Bonn, Germany from May 30-June 3, the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body said it will launch a structured public consultation on recommendations for activities involving carbon removals running from June 5-19.

Article 6.4 is a mechanism allows a company in one country to reduce emissions domestically and have those reductions credited so that it can sell them to another company in another country.

The rules around Article 6.4 are still to be agreed and the UN has designated a 12-member body to supervise the mechanism.

At the meeting, it decided to adopt a tonne-for-tonne (mt-mt) basis instead of a tonne-per year (mt/year) basis in accounting for carbon removals.

The body also agreed that the accounting and crediting for removals and addressing reversals still needs further work.

"With regards to 'tonne-year' accounting, members acknowledged the persistent concerns and questions raised, including within the scientific community, regarding its underpinning methods and assumptions, and ecological implications, and insufficient confidence in its suitability for international applications and effectiveness at addressing reversals in line with the mandate for this work," it said in its meeting report.

This comes as carbon dioxide removal, or CDR, has been the subject of much debate recently. A recent UN information note dismissed technologies that pull CO2 from the atmosphere as "unproven". This caused a big kerfuffle in carbon markets, with the body receiving more than 100 letters in defense of the nascent carbon removals sector in the past week.

CDR refers to climate mitigation strategies that remove CO2 emissions from the atmosphere, as opposed to strategies to avoid such emissions. These encompass a wide array of approaches, including direct air capture coupled with durable storage, soil carbon sequestration, biomass carbon removal and storage, enhanced mineralization, ocean-based CDR, and afforestation/reforestation.

Methodology work

Olga Gassan-zade, the chair of the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body, said the members also discussed the first drafts of the project cycle and methodology approval procedures, but admitted that more effort was needed to finalize the finer details.

"More work will be required on these documents, I encourage the stakeholder community to review and provide us feedback on these documents," she added.

The 12-member UN supervisory body has been tasked with finalizing details on what can be traded under this mechanism, particularly on what methodologies and activities can be included.

The mechanism is seen as a replacement for the UN's Clean Development Mechanism, which allowed emissions reduction projects in developing countries to generate carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol.

Article 6.4 matters for the voluntary carbon market because it will effectively create a new compliance market, opening up fresh demand for credits, with the UN deciding the rules on eligibility.

Until these rules are clarified, there is uncertainty among buyers and carbon project developers on which projects will see increased demand and potentially higher prices.

The body also said it will start receiving requests for transition of CDM activities from project participants on June 30, with a submission interface to be launched at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat that same day.

"Clarify the roles and responsibilities of the host Party in the activity cycle, including in assessing the implications of hosting the activities under consideration on the implementation of their national determined contributions, or NDCs," was one of the recommendations from the final meeting report.

Once the body finalizes these decisions, these will be sent for approval at the UN Climate Change Conference COP28 in Dubai later this year.