Background
The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted so far by the Parties to the Paris Agreement are not sufficient to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. All countries are therefore called upon to raise their ambition in terms of climate protection. This is especially true for industrialised nations like Germany. Not only do they bear a greater (historical) responsibility for climate change, but they also have the resources needed to combat it. One way to increase ambition is to use the "Cooperative Approaches" established under Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement: These allow a climate protection measure to be implemented in one country and the resulting mitigation results to be transferred to another country and counted against the national climate protection target there. As a result, such cooperation should contribute to an increase in ambition. However, as an EU member state, Germany is bound by the NDC of the European Union, which does not provide for the crediting of mitigation results achieved outside the EU.
Implementation
Against this background, the research project commissioned by the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) is investigating what other options are available to Germany in the use of Article 6.2 and how these could be implemented.
The project, led by the Wuppertal Institute, is being implemented together with the GFA Consulting Group.
The project team will first examine the conditions under which Germany can use cooperative approaches in a targeted manner. In addition, a catalogue of criteria and tests will be developed that can be used to select suitable partner countries and climate protection measures. Based on an analysis of the new or updated NDCs, the next step is to identify possible partner countries for Germany. Subsequently, the criteria and screening catalogue will be applied to particularly promising partner countries and further refined. Finally, the results of the research project will be presented to the international community and discussed with experts.
Milestones and Outlook
The aim of the project is to develop criteria that can be used to identify suitable cooperative approaches. The work is intended to contribute to the identification of opportunities for the use of Article 6.2 for Germany that contribute to an increase in ambition, ensure environmental integrity and achieve contributions to a sustainable transformation.