Experts tasked to work on methodologies for the new UN-regulated Paris agreement crediting mechanism (Pacm) are sticking to their controversial decision to require clean cooking activities to contribute some of the credits they generate to a buffer for reversals.
Holding clean cooking activities accountable for the non-permanence of emissions reductions is in line with the latest science on this matter, to which Pacm is committed, Pacm's methodological expert panel said in an information note published on UN climate arm the UNFCCC's website on Friday.
The buffer pool requirements have been strongly criticised by project developers, prompting Pacm's supervisory body to ask the panel for clarification.
Project developers argue that clean cooking activities will be made economically unviable under the non-permanence requirements, on top of other methodology criteria that have been strongly tightened compared with Pacm predecessor the clean development mechanism (CDM) and the voluntary carbon market.
Pacm clean cooking projects will be more expensive and this may lead to a shift towards other activities — either non-clean cooking within Pacm or clean cooking outside Pacm, the expert panel said in the information note.
Contributing to the reversal risk buffer pool account could reduce the number of Pacm credits — so-called A6.4ERs — issued to activity participants by around 6pc in a charcoal-to-electricity activity under a 10pc reversal reduction scenario, or by around 60pc in a fuelwood-efficiency activity and assuming a 50pc reversal reduction scenario.
But the central benefit of accounting for reversal risk is the "preservation of the environmental integrity of the Article 6.4 mechanism as a whole", the panel said, referring to the article of the Paris climate agreement governing the mechanism.
The expert panel also proposed alternatives to a buffer pool contribution, while emphasising that they might require changes to the Article 6.4 rules. The issue is likely to be debated at the UN Cop 31 climate conference in Turkey in November.
Alternatives include exempting mitigation contribution units — A6.4ERs whose emissions savings remain in the host country — from a buffer contribution. But this would create a different level of substantive claims between units, the experts cautioned.
Or other activity types that are not subject to reversal risks could be required to make buffer pool contributions for clean cooking activities, perhaps as a bridging measure, or to allow clean cooking activities that are nested under a jurisdictional carbon crediting activity — mainly Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation — to be exempted.
The panel recommended a list of natural reversal risk factors for different regions, nations and sub-nations, mirroring the Pacm factors for the fraction of non-renewable biomass. For Asia-Pacific, the wildfire risk factor has been put at 2.1pc, and the risk factor for all other natural reversal risks at 24.6pc. For Latin America and the Caribbean, the factors are 7.1pc and 24.9pc, respectively, and for sub-Saharan Africa they are 0.2pc and 12.3pc. Proposed national reversal risk factors vary greatly.
The expert panel last week recommended two clean cooking methodology drafts to the supervisory body for the latter's next meeting — the CLEAR methodology submitted by the Clean Cooking and Climate Consortium, and a legacy CDM clean cooking methodology update focused on fuel-switching.
Should the supervisory body adopt the two methodologies at its October meeting, this would bring the total number of Pacm methodologies to five, all passed this year. A range of further methodology proposals are under discussion but will not be adopted before next year.
