Text Recommendations for SD provisions in Article 6 - COP24

In 2018, as input to the COP24 in Katowice a position paper and detailed text proposals were developed by the SDI team and presented to Parties and stakeholders during workshops and a series of roundtable discussions.

Read previous text proposal The outcome of COP24 indicated that SD did not feature prominently in the draft texts of the implementing decisions to Article 6. The text on Article 6 included only minimum SD provisions that did not reflect any significant change from the Kyoto Protocol. In spite of the Paris Agreement Art. 6 'shall requirements' to promote SD, operationalizing the SD provisions was not a priority for all Parties.

However, with respect to cooperative approaches of Article 6.2 the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) of the Paris Agreement) (§77d) now mandates all countries to provide information on how these approaches promote sustainable development, consistent with decisions adopted for Article 6. Noting the decision was taken ‘without prejudice’, hence the possibility for Article 6 rules to go beyond. On this background, the SDI has updated text proposals towards COP25 as shown below.

The SDI recommends the following elements in future text provisions

Article 6.2 – Reporting:

Ex-ante assessment and reporting of expected SD contributions of the collaboration;
Periodic ex-post assessment and reporting of the SD contributions;
Development of tools and approaches adapted to various types of collaboration (project level, sectoral level, policy level) for voluntary use to:Support SD assessment and reporting towards nationally determined goals and priorities of host Parties;Avoid/mitigate negative impacts.

Article 6.4 - Roles and responsibilities:

Participation requirements for host Parties:

The confirmation of the host Party based on information made publicly available that the activity fosters sustainable development;
Facilitative role of the Supervisory Body mandated to:Foster knowledge exchange and support development of tools and approaches (for voluntary use) to facilitate SD assessment and reporting (ex-post, ex-ante) towards nationally determined goals and priorities of host Parties;Enable the development of nationally determined approaches for stakeholder consultations on sustainable development, a grievance mechanism and do-no-harm safeguards informed by international best practice.