CMA

CMA stands for the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement. It is the governing body responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015 and entered into force on 4 November 2016. Only states and regional economic integration organizations that have ratified, accepted, approved, or acceded to the Paris Agreement are full Parties to the CMA; other UNFCCC Parties may participate only as observers.

The CMA convenes each year in conjunction with the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC and the CMP (the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol). Sessions are numbered sequentially: CMA 1 opened in Marrakech in 2016, with substantive work completed in stages through CMA 1-3 in Katowice (2018), where Parties adopted the bulk of the Paris Rulebook. Subsequent sessions have refined rules on Article 6 (market and non-market cooperation), the Enhanced Transparency Framework under Article 13, and the Global Stocktake under Article 14.

The CMA's core functions include:

• Reviewing the implementation of the Paris Agreement and adopting decisions to promote its effective execution.
• Overseeing the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) registry and the cycle of communication, updating, and accounting.
• Guiding the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism, including the Green Climate Fund and the Global Environment Facility, on matters relating to the Paris Agreement.
• Conducting the Global Stocktake every five years, the first of which concluded at CMA 5 in Dubai in 2023 with the UAE Consensus, calling on Parties to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems.
• Establishing subsidiary bodies and adopting rules of procedure.

Decisions are typically taken by consensus, mirroring UNFCCC practice. The CMA is institutionally distinct from but operationally interwoven with the COP, and decisions of one body cannot bind Parties of the other.