Finance, Transparency And Compliance – Key Features Of The Paris Agreement (Part Two)

Article 6

This part of the Agreement establishes a "mechanism to contribute to the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and support sustainable development", a device to support implementation through both market and non-market instruments; the latter reflecting an aversion of a number of Parties to market mechanisms such as carbon trading. There is little indication as to the shape the mechanism will take beyond that it is intended to be "income-generating" and "self-financing". Whilst this is encouraging given limited resources, a question remains as to the usefulness of yet another "mechanism" under the Convention supervised by yet another "body designated by the COP" given the convoluted plethora of "bodies", "mechanisms", "working groups" and financial mechanisms in the ever-growing spider's web of the UNFCCC. There is perhaps a danger of more and more overlapping functions, more and more meetings, more and more liaison without necessarily a lot more action.