Acronyms Carbon Markets

A6.4ERs

Article 6.4 Emission Reductions

AFOLU

Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use

ART

Architecture for REDD+ Transactions

CA

Corresponding Adjustments

CARP

Centralized Accounting and Reporting Platform

CDM

Clean Development Mechanism

CER

Certified Emissions Reductions (Kyoto Protocol)

CMA

Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting Parties of the Paris Agreement

CMP

Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting Parties of the Kyoto Protocol

CO2 eq

Carbon dioxide equivalent

COP

Conference of the Parties

CORSIA

Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation

DNA

Designated National Authority

ER

Emission Reductions

ETS

Emissions trading systems

FREL

Forest Reference Emission Level

GCF

Green Climate Fund

GHG

Greenhouse gas

HFLD

High Forest Low Deforestation

IC

VCM

IPCC

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

ITMOs

Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (Article 6.2 units)

JCM

Joint Credit Mechanism

LDC

Least Developed Countries

LEAF

Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance

MCUs

Mitigation Contribution A6.4ERs

MEP

Article 6.4 Methodological Expert Panel

NCS

Natural Climate Solutions

NDC

Nationally Determined Contribution

ODA

Official Development Assistance

OMGE

Overall Mitigation in Global Emissions

OIMP

Other international mitigation purposes

PACM

Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism

PAICC

Paris Agreement Implementation and Compliance Committee

REDD+

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks

SIDS

Small Islands Developing States

SOP

Share of Proceeds

TER

Technical Expert Review

TREES

The REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard

UAE

United Arab Emirates

UNFCCC

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

VCM

Voluntary Carbon Market

VCMI

Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative

Article 6.2

A flexible route where countries make their own bilateral or multilateral carbon trading deals.

Article 6.4

A UN-run carbon crediting system with central rules, approved methods, and a registry.

Article 6.8

A non-market route for climate cooperation, such as finance or technical help, without trading carbon credits.

Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism

The official name for the Article 6.4 UN carbon crediting mechanism.

Carbon market

A system where carbon units are bought and sold.

Carbon credit

A certificate usually representing one tonne of emissions reduced or removed.

Mitigation outcome

A result where emissions are reduced or carbon is removed from the atmosphere.

Offset

Using a carbon credit to compensate for emissions made somewhere else.

Voluntary claim

A company or person saying they supported climate action by buying carbon credits voluntarily.

Compliance market

A carbon market created by law, where companies or countries must meet rules.

Domestic carbon market

A carbon market inside one country.

Carbon tax

A tax charged for emitting greenhouse gases.

Seller country/ Host country

The country that sells carbon units created from climate action inside its borders. The country where the carbon project or activity takes place.

Project developer

The person, company, or organisation that designs and runs a carbon project.

Cooperative approach

A planned Article 6.2 cooperation between countries or authorised entities.

Corresponding adjustment

An accounting change that stops the same emission reduction being counted twice.

Authorisation

Formal government permission for a carbon unit to be used under Article 6.

Letter of authorisation

The official document showing that a country has authorised the use of carbon units.

Unilateral authorisation

When a seller country authorises carbon units before a specific buyer is identified.

Issuance

The creation of carbon units after the project results have been checked.

Cancellation

Permanently removing a carbon unit from use so it cannot be sold or claimed again. Sometimes mandatory (The 2% cancellation operates alongside another mandatory deduction within the Paris Agreement's Article 6.4 framework: a 5% levy is taken and transferred to the Adaptation Fund.)

Retirement

Using a carbon credit for a claim and then permanently taking it out of circulation.

Mechanism Registry

The official Article 6.4 registry that tracks Article 6.4 units. A digital tracking system showing who owns carbon units and what happens to them.

Technical expert review

A check by specialists to see whether countries are following Article 6 rules. It's a defined feature of Article 6.4, where the Supervisory Body appoints technical experts to review each project's methodology, baseline, and monitoring plan before crediting. That's a formal, centralised step baked into the 6.4 mechanism's governance.

Inconsistency

A problem or mismatch found in a country’s Article 6 reporting or accounting.

Environmental integrity

Confidence that a carbon credit represents a real climate benefit.

Additionality

Proof that the climate benefit would not have happened without the carbon project or support (Problem for Ukraine post-war green energy reconstruction potentially?) Look: projects (like the Slavutych-style community/private model) where there genuinely isn't already a donor picking up the tab. Worth checking the World Bank/EU RDNA5 sector breakdown directly for the energy financing stack to pin down exactly which subsectors remain underfunded.

Baseline

The estimated emissions level that would have happened without the project.

Conservative baseline

A cautious baseline that avoids exaggerating the project’s climate benefit.

Leakage

When emissions fall in one place but rise somewhere else because of the project.

Permanence

How long the stored carbon or climate benefit is expected to last. (Example: a forest sequesters carbon this year, gets a credit, then burns down in a wildfire in year 8, and the carbon goes straight back into the atmosphere. Now that credit that was sold and possibly retired against someone's climate claim no longer corresponds to a real reduction. This is why removal credits are typically discounted, insured through buffer pools (a percentage of credits held back and never sold, to cover future reversals), or given a monitoring/liability period stretching decades beyond the crediting period itself.) So for Ukraine, energy/ industrial decarbonisation could be cool even now but additionality concerns, forests and soil after war ends.

Reversal

When stored carbon is released again, reducing or cancelling the earlier climate benefit.

Buffer pool

A reserve of carbon units kept aside to cover future losses or risks. Often, a reserve used specifically to deal with the risk that stored carbon is later released.

Insurance mechanism

A financial tool that helps cover losses if a carbon project fails or reverses.

Monitoring

Measuring and tracking whether a project is really reducing or removing emissions.

Crediting period

The time during which a project can generate carbon credits.

No banking rule

A restriction preventing surplus mitigation outcomes (like unused NDC achievements or certain unit types) from being carried forward and used against a future NDC period, so that a country can't stockpile ambition now and coast on it later.

Cap

A fixed maximum number of carbon units that can be sold or exported.

Positive list

A list of activities that are allowed to generate Article 6 units. Positive Lists: Used historically in Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) frameworks and carried forward by many countries transitioning into Article 6.

Negative list

A list of activities that are not allowed to generate Article 6 units. Frequently utilized in newer Article 6 policy frameworks. For example, countries like Ghana put unconditional NDC mitigation programs on a "red list" to ensure they are retained for domestic targets, while conditionally allowing other sectors to trade credits under Article 6.2.

Conditional NDC target

A climate target a country promises to meet only if it receives outside support.

Unconditional NDC target

A climate target a country promises to meet using its own resources.

Sector outside an NDC

An area of emissions that is not covered by a country’s current climate target.

National greenhouse gas inventory

A country’s official record of its greenhouse gas emissions and removals.

Mitigation activity

A project or policy that reduces emissions or removes greenhouse gases.

Marginal abatement cost

The cost of reducing one extra tonne of emissions. (Abatement = act or process of reducing, lessening, or suppressing the degree or intensity of something)

Marginal abatement cost curve MACC

A chart ranking climate actions from cheapest to most expensive per tonne reduced. Stepped bar chart (height is cost, width is volume)

Corresponding adjustment fee

A charge used to cover the seller country’s cost of replacing exported reductions. A domestic levy some countries choose to charge on top of the trade specifically to claw back value for that lost mitigation capacity and to help fund the country's own remaining, now-more-expensive path to its NDC. (Ghana charges a flat $5 per ITMO, Kenya applies a 1% administrative fee on expected credits plus a 0–25% tax on project revenue)

Administrative fee

A charge used to pay for running the Article 6 system.

Benefit sharing

Rules for dividing carbon market income among governments, developers, and communities.

Safeguards

Rules meant to protect people and the environment from harm caused by projects.

Grievance mechanism

A process that lets affected people raise complaints about a project.

Sustainable Development Tool

An Article 6.4 tool used to check social, environmental, and development impacts.

Capacity building

Helping people or institutions gain the skills and systems needed to act.

Climate finance

Money used to support climate action.

Adaptation Fund

A fund that helps vulnerable countries adapt to climate impacts.

High-integrity credit

A carbon credit that is likely to represent a real, measured, and credible climate benefit.