The UN body responsible for setting up a carbon market under the Paris Agreement has adopted important new standards to guide how emission-reducing projects measure their impact. Known as the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism (PACM), it enables countries and other actors to work together on reducing greenhouse gas emissions by generating high-integrity carbon credits that support global efforts to fight climate change.

The rules adopted set out how to measure a project’s actual emission reduction impact under the mechanism. Specifically, two key standards were agreed. These are a standard for estimating the emissions that would have happened without a project under the mechanism (known as the ‘baseline’) and a standard for accounting for any unintended increases in emissions that might happen elsewhere as a result of a project (known as ‘leakage’).

The agreed standards reflect wide input from experts and stakeholders. They are key to ensuring that carbon credits issued under the PACM are ambitious, real, additional and verifiable.