Sinks, Adaptation, and Loss and Damage

In one line

Half the climate regime is not about emissions at all, and articles 5 to 8 of the Paris Agreement cover sinks, cooperation, adaptation, and the harm that adaptation cannot prevent.

In exam wording: article 5 of the Paris Agreement addresses sinks and reservoirs including forests; article 6 provides for voluntary cooperative approaches, internationally transferred mitigation outcomes, a mechanism to contribute to mitigation and support sustainable development, and non-market approaches; article 7 establishes a global goal on adaptation and the obligations relating to it; and article 8 addresses loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, through the Warsaw International Mechanism.

Article 5: sinks

Paragraph 1: Parties should take action to conserve and enhance, as appropriate, sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases as referred to in article 4, paragraph 1(d), of the Convention, including forests.

Paragraph 2: Parties are encouraged to take action to implement and support, including through results-based payments, the existing framework of policy approaches and positive incentives for activities relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries, as well as alternative policy approaches such as joint mitigation and adaptation approaches for the integral and sustainable management of forests, while reaffirming the importance of incentivising the non-carbon benefits associated with such approaches.

This is the only forest provision in a binding global instrument, and the world of "should" and "are encouraged" is the world the 1992 forest convention's failure left behind.

Article 6: cooperation

Paragraph 1: Parties recognise that some choose to pursue voluntary cooperation in the implementation of their contributions to allow for higher ambition and to promote sustainable development and environmental integrity.

Paragraph 2: where Parties engage on a voluntary basis in cooperative approaches involving the use of internationally transferred mitigation outcomes towards nationally determined contributions, they shall promote sustainable development and ensure environmental integrity and transparency, and apply robust accounting to ensure the avoidance of double counting, consistent with guidance adopted by the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties.

Paragraph 4 establishes a mechanism to contribute to the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and support sustainable development, under the authority and guidance of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties, aiming to promote mitigation while fostering sustainable development, to incentivise participation by public and private entities, to contribute to the reduction of emission levels in the host Party, and to deliver an overall mitigation in global emissions.

Paragraph 5 requires that emission reductions resulting from the mechanism shall not be used to demonstrate achievement of the host Party's contribution if used by another Party to demonstrate achievement of its own. That single sentence is the answer to the double counting problem that dogged the clean development mechanism.