The Ghana Carbon project must reduce emissions or increase sequestration of Carbon in a manner that is real, permanent, verifiable and additional. Additionality is a concept from international Carbon project accounting principles that requires a project activity is additional to “business as usual” and would not have occurred in the absence of an incentive provided by a Carbon offsets market. Carbon reduction projects registered on the Reserve must be verified by an independent third party after passing the eligibility criterialaid down by the reserve. Check Eligibility. After a project has been positively verified and approved by the Reserve, it is officially registered on the Reserve and issued offset credits known as Mitigation Outcomes (MOs). The Mitigation Activity Cycle is made up of 12 steps. Click on each step for the details.
The Mitigation Activity Cycle
Step 1 – Mitigation Activity Participant or Entity Application
Click on Mitigation Activity Participant or Entity Application Form to create an Account and obtain mitigation activity identification number on the GCR. Each MAP shall be charged (refer to fees schedule) to activate the account. Any Mitigation Activity Participant (MAP) or entity that wants to create a MAP Account and Mitigation Activity Identification Number ( MID) on the Ghana Carbon Registry (GCR) and/or wishes to obtain a Letter of Intent (LOI); and All Entities who wish to engage in the Article 6.2 Cooperative Approaches or the Voluntary Carbon Market as a Service Provider (SP) or Carbon Credit Broker (CCB) or Validation/Verification Entity (VVE) aiming to receive to a Letter of Identification (LOD) and Unique Identification Number (UIN) from the Article 6 Office (A6.O) must complete this form and submit using the web link - http://appgcr.epa.gov.gh/upload_docx.php.
Step 2.1 (OPTIONAL) –Mitigation Activity Idea Note (MAIN)
MAP shall use the MAIN template to prepare MAIN and submit to the Article 6 Office to determine alignment with NDC and SDG. Where possible, the complete MAIN may be submitted together with the request for the LOI. MAIN must briefly explain the proposed mitigation activity, alignment with NDC and sector policies, the rationale for generating the ITMOs, and monitoring plan, governance arrangements, contribution to sustainable development and financial requirements. Request for Letter of Endorsement (LOE) as formal recognition of VCM project developer seeking to create offset credit
Step 2.2 – Request for Letter of Assurance
MAP shall request for Letter of Assurance (LA) for pre-authorisation and confirmation of automatic additionality if mitigation activity is published in the “Whitelist” or pre-selected list.
Step 2.3 – Development of Mitigation Activity Design Document (MADD)
MAP shall design mitigation activity intended to reduce/remove emissions in Ghana, following the baseline and MRV methodology in the recommended ICS such as CDM, VCS and GS and Verra and prepares the Mitigation Activity Design Document (MADD) and submit to Article 6 Office for consideration and recommendation. Article 6 Office considers the MADD and issues a Letter of Recommendation (LOR) MAP to proceed to the validation stage and initiate the authorisation process.
Step 3 – Independent Assessment of Mitigation Activity
MAP shall seek for validation assessment of mitigation activity from recommended independent entity under CDM, VCS, ISO 14064, and assessment of the consistency of MADD with methodology under ICS, and per schedule 6 of this framework, bilateral Agreement between Ghana and participating Party and the national laws of the participating acquiring Party. Individual small-scale projects as candidates for a programmatic activity, based on the threshold recommended by the A6.TC and approved by Article 6.BD, and in agreement with the participating Party, may use simplified, standardized baseline and Article 6 Office TLL completeness checks to reduce transaction costs. The MAP then submits official signed version of the MADD to Article 6 Office and participating acquiring Party for consideration.
Step 4 – Request for Authorisation
MAP shall submit a request for Letter of Authorisation (LOA) to Article 6 Office using the procedures in section 2.4 and section 3.9 of this framework document.
Step 5 – Mitigation Activity registration
The MAP requests registration of mitigation activity on GCR or on any Internationally recognised registry (ICS) such as GS, VCS or VERRA and link to GCR.ICS registry to notify the Article 6 Office via email message of registration of Mitigation Activity or VCM activity on its registry and reflected authorisation status.
Step 6 – Implementation and monitoring
MAP implements the registered mitigation activity and monitors outcomes per the requirements set in the MADD and the methodology approved by the recommended ICS in this framework document.
Step 7 - Verification and positive examination
An accredited entity under CDM, VCS and GS conducts independent verification of the consistency of monitoring to verify the impacts achieved by the activity during the monitoring period. Ghana and the participating acquiring Party shall undertake a positive examination of the verification report leading to the recognition of the verified mitigation activity. The successful, positive examination of the verification report will allow for the publication of the verification report.
Step 8 - Issuance of ITMOs
Authorised and verified ITMOs from mitigation activity seeking for CA shall be created on the Ghana Registry System or Registry linked to an ICS with unique serial numbers into a holding account. The serial number format for the issued ITMOs shall be consistent with the requirements in section V.A of 2/CMA.3. The GCR shall be notified of the quantity and particulars of the ITMOs issued to a mitigation activity on a registry linked to ICS. If the issuance is done on any other ICS registry, the ICS shall submit notification of the issuance of offset credits to the VCM project for recording on the GCR.
Step 9 - Transfer, retirement and cancellation of ITMOs
Regardless of the registry on which the ITMOs were created, all Transfers of ITMOs to the registry of the participating acquiring Country shall start from the GCR after a request has been received from the MAP using the Mitigation Outcomes Transfer Request Form. The GCR transfers ITMOs to the Registry of participating acquiring Party for the Uses as defined per decision 2/CMA.3 and the provisions in the Letter of Authorisation (LOA). The Article 6 Office performs reconciliation of ITMO upon acknowledgement of receipt of first transfers ITMOs in the receiving registry. For VCM Projects, the MAP notifies A6.O of retirement of offset credits from VCM project for voluntary carbon commitment.
Step 10 - Payment of Settlements
The Acquiring participating Party pays the financial value of authorized ITMOs to the MAP according to the terms of the Mitigation Outcome Purchase Agreement (MOPA). The MAP receiving payments for transferring authorized ITMOs to the acquiring participating Party or MAP creating offset credits for use toward domestic voluntary carbon commitment pays 100% of the listing fee per issuance. The MAP makes full payment of the CA fee to compensate for the opportunity cost of meeting NDC and the marginal cost of creating authorized ITMOs per issuance.
Step 11 - Corresponding Adjustment
The Article 6 Office shall apply CA on all transferred authorised ITMOs within the GHG accounting framework per the principles in section 2.2.5 and the methodology in section 2.6 of this framework.
Step 12 - Reporting
The Article 6 Office shall prepare Article 6.2 Initial Report (AIR) before issuing the Letter of Authorisation (LOA) and releases the official authorisation statement for each mitigation activity. The Article 6 Office shall compile quantitative information on Article 6.2 transaction in electronic format as Annual Report and submits it to the UNFCCC for recording in the Article 6 database. EPA prepares Regular Information on Ghana’s Article 6.2 cooperation approach as an annexe to Biennial Transparency Reports (BTR).