14 COM/ENV/EPOC/IEA/SLT(2021)4
Executive summary
Reporting and review requirements under the Paris Agreement include provisions on information on the use of cooperative approaches towards the implementation and achievement of Parties’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The reporting of such information cuts across Article 13 and Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement. Guidelines already agreed under Article 131 require Parties to report, i.a., information necessary to track progress made in implementing and achieving their NDCs. Under Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement, the draft CMA decision (from now on, draft A6.2 guidance) 2 indicates that Parties voluntarily engaging in cooperative approaches are to report information on the use of cooperative approaches involving the use of internationally transferred mitigation outcomes (ITMOs) towards their NDCs. Information reported under both Articles will need to undergo a technical expert review (TER) process. The separate reporting and review requirements under the Article 13 modalities, procedures, and guidelines (MPGs) and draft A6.2 guidance are directly related to each other in terms of the content of the information to be reported and reviewed. However, draft A6.2 reporting and review provisions are less detailed than reporting and review provisions under the MPGs. Given the interplay, there are opportunities for fine-tuning draft A6.2 guidance to increase its synergy in relation to the MPGs and avoid ambiguities, inconsistencies, and other issues that may prevent Parties from effectively operationalising reporting and review provisions under Article 6.2. This paper identifies and analyses issues related to the interplay of relevant reporting and review requirements under both Article 13 and Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, focusing on issues that relate to the timing, sequencing, and content of crosscutting information and co-ordination of the corresponding review processes. Further clarity on some of these provisions could help improve complementarity and consistency between the two sets of reporting and review provisions and help enhance efficiency and streamline the resources required for reporting and review. At the June 2021 informal dialogues on Article 6, the SBSTA Chair recognised that specific accounting and reporting cycle elements could be improved prior to COP26. While re-opening draft texts for Article 6.2 on reporting and review could entail some risks, making targeted and often minor changes to the current draft A6.2 guidance would greatly facilitate its future implementation. In turn, this would enhance compliance with previously-agreed Transparency,
1
Guidelines for Parties’ reporting and review under Article 13 were agreed at COP24 in 2018 and are outlined in the Annex to decision 18/CMA.1, i.e., the Modalities, Procedures, and Guidelines (MPGs). 2
This draft Article 6.2 text is currently being negotiated under the SBSTA, and is due to be agreed at COP26 in November 2021. In this document, relevant reporting provisions are extracted from the MPGs agreed in 2018 and from the three draft Presidency texts from COP25 on guidance on cooperative approaches referred to in Article 6, paragraph 2, of the Paris Agreement (from now on, draft A6.2 guidance) (UNFCCC, 2019[24]; UNFCCC, 2019[25]; UNFCCC, 2019[9]).2 Any differences across the three versions of the text are taken into consideration where relevant.
Unclassified
