PARIS Principles to Accelerate Cooperative Climate Resilience
An update from CCI on principles for catalytic international cooperation, under Article 6.8 of the Paris Agreement
To address the worsening storm of colliding and compounding crises, we will need to develop innovative cooperative strategies for early warning, threat reduction, and climate resilient development, on a scale never before attempted, just to safeguard everyday wellbeing at the human scale. The Paris Agreement captured this need astutely in paragraph 8 of Article 6, which calls for:
"integrated, holistic and balanced non-market approaches being available to Parties to assist in the implementation of their nationally determined contributions, in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication, in a coordinated and effective manner..."
Article 6.8 specifies that these non-market cooperative measures should address, among other goals and priorities:
mitigation of global heating pollution and related climate risk;
the need for adaptation to climate change effects;
finance to support climate-smart planning, development, solutions, and transparent cooperation;
sharing of knowledge and resources, including through technology transfer and capacity-building.
We take particular note of the fact that Article 6.8 also calls on countries to raise ambition by addressing mitigation and adaptation across a continuum of climate policy, while fostering both public and private sector participation in national efforts to mobilize climate solutions. This is why non-market approaches are intended to support, and be supported by, "coordination across instruments and relevant institutional arrangements."
In other words: All areas of policy, investment, and practice, can play a role in reducing climate-related threats and increasing our chances of thriving in a climate-friendly way, and those that do should be rewarded for it. So, we want to look at non-market approaches in line with the PARIS Principles:
Price pollution – Public and private sector actors can act independently or in concert to impose both implicit and explicit carbon prices. By dealing honestly with the costs of pollution, everyday economic incentives can be shifted to favor pollution-free methods and practices.
Add momentum – Climate income provides households and local economies with a way to propser through the transition, making it easier to find low-emissions returns on investment. Other non-market approaches (including Special Drawing Rights, trade conditionalities, and climate-smart debt relief) can create fiscal space and add momentum.
Reduce emissions – Pollution pricing will shift incentives away from pollution; backing up pricing policies with other non-market cooperative approaches can allow trading partners to amplify the opportunity for low-emissions investment. International cooperation should include measures to make low-emissions supply chains the mainstream norm.
Internalize inefficiencies – Negative externalities should be reduced as much as possible, while polluters carry the costs of their pollution. Structural inefficiencies also need to be transformed, through climate-smart and nature-positiveinvestments, financial instruments, and knowledge sharing.
Spread by aligning – Fairplay border adjustments can prevent pollution offshoring; trade negotiations, financial regulations, sharing of data, and climate-aligned sovereign debt management can make it easier to reward mitigation and adaptation actions and incentivize climate resilient development.
All of these things should be on the table in bilateral and multilateral discussions. Regional trade groupings and global alliances can be built around non-market approaches to climate resilient development. Banking sector transparency, local job creation, and rural diversification and redevelopment, in line with nature, climate, and sustainability goals, can all be direct benefits of taking the most ambitious view of what Article 6.8 activities can be.
Additional resources
UNFCCC Cooperative Implementation (Article 6 of the Paris Agreement) process tracking homepage
CCI / Resilience Intel brief on Article 6.8 non-market approaches (June 2022)
Financial integration and inclusion needed to get best results from Glasgow outcomes
Article 6.8 of the Paris Agreement can be an engine for food security
CCL UK: Carbon pricing and the cost of living crisis (Sept 2022)
Climate Income: People centered carbon pricing is a shortcut to a better future
A carbon club of nations is necessary to achieve climate resilience
CBAM: Background on the European Union’s coming Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism
Resilience Intel report on the Inflation Reduction Act: Creating fiscal space for climate action