Article 6.2: the flexible bilateral route
Article 6.2 is a flexible bilateral framework: two countries agree to transfer mitigation outcomes, each applies corresponding adjustments to avoid double counting, and the technical requirements are less prescriptive than under 6.4. It has been the faster route to market and currently accounts for most international carbon trading activity, though quality concerns are growing.
Article 6.4: rigorous and centralised
Article 6.4 is more rigorous and more centralised. The PACM Supervisory Body sets methodological requirements, oversees project registration, and issues credits. Host countries must authorize the projects and commit to making Corresponding Adjustments; essentially deducting exported credits from national progress. Credits issued under 6.4, known as A6.4ERs, are intended to represent the highest-integrity compliance-grade carbon credits available internationally.
The practical tension for forests
The practical tension for forests is that current draft permanence rules may be unworkable for forest carbon projects. The definition of what is “negligible reversal risk” is likely to favor industrial removals. If Article 6.4’s permanence rules are too stringent for nature-based projects to satisfy, developers may route through 6.2 instead, where bilateral flexibility allows more room. That creates pressure for 6.2 permanence approaches to drift, and sets up a two-tier compliance market with conflicting integrity signals. Parties have so far resisted attempts to force 6.4’s standards onto 6.2, partly because reopening that architecture risks reopening too much of the Paris Agreement itself. The 2028 review cycle is the next formal opportunity for alignment or divergence.
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