Projects helping households move to cleaner cooking can now seek credits through the Paris Agreement’s UN carbon-market mechanism, after its supervisory body adopted two methodologies for the sector. The decision, announced on 9 October, establishes rules for how eligible activities calculate and monitor claimed emissions reductions; it does not mean that credits have already been issued to any project.
The Article 6.4 Supervisory Body approved one methodology for more efficient wood- and charcoal-burning cookstoves and a second covering a broader shift towards cleaner, lower-emission household cooking. The rules set out which activities may qualify, how their reductions must be measured and monitored, and what checks are required before credits can be issued.
That distinction matters: adoption of a methodology provides a route for qualifying activities to apply within the mechanism, rather than confirming that any particular project has passed assessment or produced credits. The decision creates a framework for applications and accounting; project-level eligibility and any later issuance remain separate steps.
Rules for measuring claimed reductions
Carbon-credit methodologies define how a project establishes the emissions it claims to avoid and how performance is monitored. Under the new cooking rules, the project must use the specified approach to calculate and track reductions, with checks before credits are issued. The methodologies apply standards previously agreed by the supervisory body, intended to ensure reductions are real, additional and calculated conservatively.
In this context, “additional” refers to reductions that would not have occurred without the activity under the applicable accounting rules. Conservative calculation is intended to avoid overstating the amount of emissions avoided. These requirements are accounting safeguards; their adoption does not itself establish the results of an individual stove programme or certify its delivery.
Household cooking is a significant area of climate and development policy: around 2.1 billion people still rely on open fires or inefficient stoves and polluting fuels. Cleaner cooking can reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and pressure on forests, while also reducing harmful household air pollution. These are potential benefits, not measured outcomes from projects approved under the new methodologies.
A tool addresses reversal risk
Alongside the methodologies, the body adopted the first version of a tool to assess reversal risk in cleaner-cooking activities and other activities that reduce the use of non-renewable biomass. A reversal occurs when an emissions reduction previously counted is later undone. The tool recognises that possibility and requires it to be addressed in accounting.
The tool may be updated as stronger evidence and better data become available, with future versions expected to cover other types of activities. Countries may use country-specific values for natural risks where suitable data exists, while maintaining a consistent accounting approach. The tool is therefore an initial safeguard, not a claim that all sources of reversal risk have been resolved.
The new methodologies add household cooking to the activities covered by the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism. Earlier methodologies adopted by the body cover landfill gas, nitrous oxide from nitric-acid production and grid-connected renewable electricity. Together, those approaches cover activities that reduce emissions involving carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.
The decision advances the body’s priority this year of bringing a wider range of sectors and activities into the mechanism. At COP31, it is due to present its annual report to Parties to the Paris Agreement. Parties may clarify or expand its mandate and guide later work on methodologies and market rules. The immediate change is narrower: eligible clean-cooking activities now have two adopted accounting methodologies under which they can seek credits, subject to the mechanism’s requirements and checks.
