Corresponding Adjustment Definition

Model Diplomat Research Team · Last reviewed June 22, 2026

TL;DR

An accounting mechanism under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement that prevents double-counting of emission reductions transferred between countries.
Do all carbon credits require a corresponding adjustment?
Why might a country refuse to issue a corresponding adjustment?
Who tracks corresponding adjustments?

Updated June 22, 2026

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In 2023, Switzerland and Ghana finalized the first transfer of mitigation outcomes under Article 6.2, with Ghana committing to apply a corresponding adjustment for emission reductions from clean cookstove and rice cultivation projects sold to Swiss buyers.

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A corresponding adjustment is the bookkeeping step that ensures an emission reduction counted toward one country's climate target is not also counted by another. When a country authorizes the international transfer of a mitigation outcome (known as an ITMO, or Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcome), the transferring country must add the transferred tonnes back to its own greenhouse-gas inventory or subtract them from its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) accounting, while the acquiring country deducts them from its own balance. The net effect is that each tonne of CO₂-equivalent counts exactly once toward global mitigation.

The concept is established in Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement (2015) and was operationalized through the Article 6 rulebook adopted at COP26 in Glasgow (2021) and refined at COP27 and COP28. It applies both to cooperative approaches under Article 6.2 (bilateral or plurilateral deals) and to credits issued under the Article 6.4 mechanism, where the host country must decide whether to "authorize" a credit for international use — triggering the adjustment — or keep it for domestic use.

Key features:

Adjustments are tracked in annual and biennial reports submitted to the UNFCCC secretariat.
They cover only authorized ITMOs; voluntary carbon market credits not authorized by the host government generally do not receive a corresponding adjustment.
The rules apply to both single-year and multi-year NDC targets, with averaging methods for the former.

The mechanism is politically sensitive because it forces host countries — often developing nations selling credits — to forgo using those reductions toward their own NDCs. Switzerland's bilateral deals with Ghana, Peru, and others were among the first real-world tests of how corresponding adjustments work in practice.

Frequently asked questions

Do all carbon credits require a corresponding adjustment?

No. Only credits authorized by the host country for international use under Article 6 require one. Most voluntary market credits are not authorized and therefore do not trigger an adjustment, though this has become a contested issue.

Why might a country refuse to issue a corresponding adjustment?

Because doing so means the country cannot count the same reductions toward its own NDC. Selling adjusted credits can make it harder and more expensive to meet domestic climate targets.

Who tracks corresponding adjustments?

Each Party reports them to the UNFCCC secretariat through annual information and biennial transparency reports. The secretariat maintains a centralized accounting database to verify consistency between transferring and acquiring countries.