Interpretation of Corresponding Adjustment Rules of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and Implications for Korea’s NDC Implementation Policy

Under a new climate regime, parties can voluntarily participate in cooperative approaches that include internationally transferred mitigation outcomes (ITMO) and use them in the achievement of mitigation targets in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) on the basis of Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement. This leaves room for parties to accomplish their NDC targets in a flexible way, but robust accounting needs to be applied in order to avoid double counting of ITMO transferred and used for NDCs between participating countries. This way of robust accounting is called corresponding adjustment. Specific implementation rules on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement were finally fleshed out in November 2021 at the 3rd conference of the parties to the Paris Agreement, and the methods and procedures to apply corresponding adjustment were also formulated. Previous studies on corresponding adjustment explored i) fundamental principles, ii) design elements (such as timing, accounting metric, target standard, reporting, NDC timeframe, etc.), and iii) diverse methods that have to be considered in the formulation of the most appropriate rules of corresponding adjustment. Now that we have specific rules, it is time to explore the ways to apply corresponding adjustment at the national level in the most appropriate way. Therefore, this paper attempts to analyze the specific implementation rules on corresponding adjustment, explore the policy-wise points of consideration for national application, and finally draw out the most appropriate policy responses. For this, specific implementation of rules on corresponding adjustment are classified into three categories: i) corresponding adjustment method and application, ii) acquisition tracks of ITMO as a subject of corresponding adjustment, and iii) reporting and risk of corresponding adjustment. This paper concludes by summarizing policy implications for the appropriate paths forward regarding Korea’s application of corresponding adjustment in the future.