Did the Glasgow COP26 negotiations meet or miss Article 6 (carbon markets) of the Paris Agreement? A systematic review of the literature

Abstract

The Paris Agreement is an important milestone in international climate policy and the associated negotiations of the United Nations Climate Summit under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Article 6 of the Paris Agreement is a supplementary mechanism—regarding carbon markets—to reduce greenhouse gases and achieve the UNFCCC's main objective of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations. The 2021 United Nations Climate Summit in Glasgow (COP26) played a key role in the pursuit of this goal. Via an overview of Article 6 negotiations in past COP summits and a systematic review and qualitative meta-synthesis of the literature leading up to COP26, I identify three arguments involving Articles 6.2, 6.4, and 6.8 behind the selected literature. I substantiate these arguments based on the meta-evaluation of the existing literature and propose a three-stage meta-evaluation of the arguments on Article 6 (carbon markets) of the Paris Agreement in the context of COP26 to ascertain if the negotiations were successful in leading to requisite agreements on Article 6. I conclude that future qualitative research should focus on Articles 6.4 and 6.8 of the Paris Agreement and examine the outcomes of future climate debates to see how ideas will flow through the negotiations regarding these two articles to pursue the goal of the UNFCCC under the Paris Agreement.

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