Conference of Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA)

The Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement, abbreviated CMA, is the governing body established by Article 16 of the Paris Agreement. It oversees implementation of the Agreement and takes the decisions necessary to promote its effective operation. Only states that have ratified, accepted, approved, or acceded to the Paris Agreement may participate as Parties with voting rights; other UNFCCC members attend as observers.

The CMA meets in conjunction with the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC and with the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP), so a single annual gathering hosts three concurrent governing-body sessions. The first session, CMA 1, opened in Marrakech in November 2016, days after the Paris Agreement entered into force on 4 November 2016. Because many countries had not yet ratified, CMA 1 was suspended and resumed in segments through 2018, concluding in Katowice (CMA 1.3) with the adoption of the Paris Rulebook.

Core functions include:

• Reviewing implementation of mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology, and capacity-building commitments.
• Adopting decisions on the rules, modalities, and procedures of Paris Agreement mechanisms, including Article 6 cooperative approaches and the Article 13 enhanced transparency framework.
• Conducting the Global Stocktake every five years under Article 14, the first of which concluded at CMA 5 in Dubai in December 2023.
• Considering new commitments and any amendments to the Agreement.

The CMA operates by consensus in practice, as no rules of procedure on voting have been formally adopted; draft rules remain provisionally applied. Decisions are issued in the 1/CMA.X numbering format. The CMA is distinct from the COP: a COP decision cannot bind Paris Agreement Parties on Paris-specific matters, which is why landmark outcomes such as the Glasgow Climate Pact (2021) and the UAE Consensus (2023) were adopted in parallel COP and CMA decisions.