2nd Reporting Working Group of theParis Agreement Article 6 Implementation Partnership (A6IP)
Summary of Meeting
October 18, 2023

Organized by:
Ministry of the Environment, Japan (MOEJ) andParis Agreement Article 6 Implementation Partnership Center,
Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES)

Disclaimer

The organizers have taken diligent measures to maintain objectivity and present a thoroughconference summary. However, it is important to acknowledge the possibility of occasional errors. We
kindly recommend referring to the meeting webpage for additional materials pertaining to eachspeaker's presentation.

Summary of the Meeting

The 2nd Reporting Working Group of the Paris Agreement Article 6 Implementation Partnership (A6IP)
commenced with a welcome and introduction by Kazuhisa Koakutsu, Director at the Article 6Implementation Partnership Center, who gave an overview of A6IP and its activities leading up to
COP28 later this year.
Session 1 covered global progress on the A6 Initial Report from the perspective of partner countries,
with presentations by:●●●

Xavier Tibau Alberdi, UNFCCC Secretariat
Daniel Tutu Benefoh, Environmental Protection Agency, Ghana
Felix Schmidt, Federal Office for the Environment of SwitzerlandSession 2 turned to agencies supporting A6 Reporting, with presentations led by:●●●Alexandra Soezer, UNDP
Hari Gadde, World Bank
Temuulen Murun, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies

Session 3 was a presentation followed by an open discussion on a tool for reporting being developedby the A6IP, led by:●Chatthep Chanyam, A6IP Center

The meeting was concluded by Kazuhisa Koakutsu, Director at A6IP, who invited all participants toengage with the A6IP to jointly improve this tool for Reporting, as well as participate in the otherWorking Groups for Reporting and Tracking.

2Key Takeaways
1. Reporting is the first opportunity for trusted third parties to review a country’s GHG inventory,
and must be seen as a credible way for countries to work faithfully towards net zero andenvironmental
integrity,
throughtheirArticle
6goals.
2. However, significant ambiguity remains in the reporting process, especially leading up to thepoint of the initial report — as major elements such as bilateral agreements and institutionalarrangements must be in place; review processes and authorization timings create “time gaps”
where data can quickly become inaccurate; and key guidance is still pending from COP28, CMA
5,andtheUNFCCC
manualonreporting.
3. Countries’ experiences show that this ambiguity can best be overcome through peer-to-peer
learning, and tight coordination within and between countries to ensure data integrity —making collaborative forums and resources key to successful A6 reporting.
— Highlights from the minutes follow below —Introduction- A6IPC Updates- Invitation to collaborate on A6IP Reporting Tool (as well as Authorization and Tracking Tools)●●Mr. Koakutsu gave an update on the Center, its activities, and how it is scaling up to bettersupport partners: introducing 2 new full-time staff (Diana Khan and Hayato Nakamura) as wellas the Center’s new branding.
He invited partners to look forward to the coming Tracking WG as well as other practicalactivities to support their implementation of A6, and to collaborate with the A6IP on the A6
tools it will be presenting at COP28, before inviting the UNFCCC, Ghana, and Switzerland tobegin the first session.

Session 1: Information sharing on A6 Initial Report from partner countries- Background on Reporting
Sharingfromcountries

withearly

experiences:

GhanaandSwitzerland

UNFCCC●●Mr. Alberdi covered key elements of reporting, and outlined recent and upcoming
developments on the UNFCCC’s A6 Reporting work program.
Expected outcomes from decisions to be made at the upcoming CMA 1 5 were specificallycalled out:
○ An agreed electronic format (AEF)○ Sequencing — various scenarios where the AEF can be submitted independently on
the initial report and its review, or whether it is subject to constraints on the initialreport○ Annual information as part of the regular information — ITMOs○ Reporting implications of various methods for converting non-GHG 2 ITMOs 3

1

Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement
Greenhouse gas
3Internationally transferred mitigation outcomes23○Common nomenclatures — which elements have to be within them, and how theyshould be registered

Ghana●●●

Ghana’s initial reporting experience comes from its first Authorized program — a ricecultivation project with Switzerland, improving water use efficiency and cutting methaneemissions — published Nov 2020, with the first delivery of ITMOs to Switzerland expected inQ2 2024. The entire process took 5 months.
Mr. Benefoh highlighted 3 critical success factors from Ghana’s experience:○ Constant data gathering and verification — Regularly collecting and updating info
across diverse sources and checking for consistency, with a robust internal review &approval process before submission.
○ Constant coordination with partner countries — Timely and regular info must be
traded to check its consistency, before adding it to the AIR 4.
○ AIR should be updated before ITMO transfer — Information in the initial report may
change before the ITMO transfer, since authorization happens in a window of
uncertainty before the project has begun (a topic touched on in the A6IP’s previous
Working Group on Authorization).
A single “source of truth” is essential for collecting, updating, and verifying all information anddata that ultimately feeds into reports.

Switzerland
●

●

●
●

As a buyer country with 3 Authorized cooperative approaches, Switzerland has published 3
preliminary initial reports and created its own initial report template prior to the UNFCCC
publishing its own. They have since translated their template to the UNFCCC’s, needing only
minor layout changes to be made.
Mr. Schmidt affirmed Ghana’s sharing on critical factors for successful reporting, reiteratingthat coordination (both within a country, and with a cooperative approach partner) is key forconsistency on major decisions on authorizing and tracking ITMOs; CAs 5; and contribution toambition in mitigation / adaptation.
While there are many major workstreams to coordinate before initial report submission —like bilateral agreements on ITMO metrics, CAs, and national NDCs 6 — laying thesefoundations makes future reporting easier.
He also called for international guidance and clarity on 2 fronts, highlighting:○ The risk of locking in policy decisions for an entire NDC implementation period — itremains tough for countries to move ahead on projects, while waiting on future CMA
decisions on initial reporting.
○ Need for mandated manuals on expectations for reporting — e.g. There is still littleguidance on the appropriate level of detail to be included in specific clauses; overabstraction may lead to losing critical nuances and info.

Session 2: Information sharing on A6 Reporting from supporting agencies
UNDP

4Article 6.2 Initial Report
Corresponding adjustments
6Nationally determined contributions
54●●●Ms. Soezer introduced 2 layers of UNDP’s support: resources for country readiness, and digital
infrastructure tools. These include a step-by-step regulatory and institutional framework thathas already been used to support multiple countries; a Voluntary Bilateral Cooperation
webapp designed for scale, with new modular configurations added as new countries onboard
to the platform; and a Digital Public Good National Carbon Registry that automates carbon
credit issuance transparently.
Responding to the specific challenges raised by Switzerland, Ms. Soezer presented templates
for UNFCCC reporting, adding that guiding examples and initial reports from Ghana andVanuatu would be made available by end-Oct 2023.
She also agreed with earlier presenters that the reporting process remains challenging due tothe diversity of projects and country needs, as well as ambiguity on what to report in which
section, and concluded that all parties would continue to “learn by doing”, drawing on eachothers’ experiences to make reporting easier for all stakeholders over time, even as agencies
likeUNDP
worktoalignandclarify
processes
movingforward.

World Bank●●●●Mr. Gadde discussed the emerging digital infrastructure for registries; and how WB is working
with 20 countries to build an end-to-end digital ecosystem for carbon markets, that will givecountries flexibility to choose modules that meet their needs (building on Ms. Soezer’s themeof scaling with modularity).
Technological, functional, capacity building, and regulatory / policy best practices on how tobuild and deploy registry and MRV 7 are not yet established, and more analysis is needed. In
particular, countries and the WB must assess various business models to see which bestenable countries to derisk the initial cost outlay of registry implementation and deployment,
when costs are uncertain.
On top of what Ghana and Switzerland have already shared, countries have also sought WB’s
help to clarify how different report requirements relate to each other, and how they can set
up institutional arrangements. Mr. Gadde shared a list of resources including webinars andtechnical papers that countries can draw from.
Moving ahead, WB will continue to support initial and future reports (especially at theinfrastructural level), with partnership and market implementation on domestic carbon
pricing and markets, plus digital innovation on registries and data management.

Institute for Global Environmental Strategies●●●

78Ms. Murun shared IGES’ learnings from having run multiple cycles of its Mutual Learning
Program for Enhanced Transparency (MLP) — a capacity building workshops for Article 6.2
reporting — with 8 partner countries since 2020, before UNFCCC guidance was published.
Key to the MLP is drafting a hypothetical Art. 6.2 reporting using the JCM 8, a collaborative
process where countries “learn by doing” and trade feedback on each other’s reports in asupportive setting.
A survey of MLP countries confirmed that partner countries face challenges in understanding
and implementing Article 6 guidance, including a limited understanding of CA methods andreporting requirements. Practical exercises such as drafting reports and reviewing othercountries' reports can be helpful in deepening understanding and identifying gaps, though themost important need is for flexible capacity building on domestic arrangements and registry

Measurement, reporting, and verification
Joint Crediting Mechanism

5systems, which should be tailored to meet countries’ needs, down to the level of program
schedule, topics, and format.

Session 3: Discussion about the development of a tool for reporting
A6IP
●
●

●

Adding to the suite of solutions to manage the A6 reporting challenges discussed earlier, Mr.
Chanyam presented the A6IP’s work on a tool with various elements, each targeted at
supporting various stages of the reporting process.
Linking the tool back to the topics discussed during Sessions 1 and 2 — special attention wasgiven to how it directs users to the most relevant public databases and capacity building
resources where necessary, provides indicative examples on how to respond to questions,and incorporates info from Ghana and Switzerland’s initial submissions.
The tool also extends to AEF reports & regular information reports — comprehensively layingout all info needed. A next draft will be shared by Nov ‘23, iterated on, presented at COP28,
then finalized next year.

Discussion●Capacity building for reviewers was flagged as a priority need, as it directly impacts initialreporting and regular information reporting. WG participants were keen to receive theUNFCCC manual and other resources supporting reporting ASAP — particularly before April‘24 as countries will be preparing for annual information reports and starting their review
processes by then. Mr. Alberdi confirmed that — while working with limited bandwidth —theUNFCCC is focusing on this manual as it as an asset of key interest to many countries; and Ms.
Murun mentioned that the MLP will help countries bridge the knowledge and practice gap inthemeantime.

●Both Ghana and Switzerland emphasized that A6 reporting must be considered in, and linked
back to, the broader context of net zero and environmental integrity. This can be achieved byensuring ministries and other stakeholders are coordinated on broad national strategies, andtracking where and how authorization is done, so reporting can faithfully and credibly provide
an auditable view of a country’s GHG inventory, concretely defining the impacts andsafeguards for activities, and by constantly updating and aligning data to overcome “time gaps”
createdbylengthy
review
processes.

●In response to questions on how countries should engage with the wide variety andcomplexity of examples, templates, and resources on reporting, Mr. Koakutsu explained how
the A6IP will address this by offering a toolkit that compiles, coordinates, and builds on thematerials available so countries can pick and choose what meets their needs.

Closing●remarks
Mr. Koakutsu concluded that while parties wait for clarity from COP28, CMA 5, and resources
such as the UNFCCC manual, countries should begin by tapping on countries who already havereporting experience, as well as the resources already available — such as the UNDP’sresources and the A6IP’s reporting tool. He also reiterated that in the absence of clear
guidance, environmental integrity should be the principle to follow when dealing with
ambiguity in the reporting process.
6