Solving the MRV challenge for new market-based mechanisms: What can past experience teach us?

The new market-based mechanisms (NMBM) being discussed in the climate change negotiations will require a monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) system that enables a transparent accounting of their contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions. This discussion paper analyses how such a MRV system for the new market-based mechanisms can be designed so that it complies with the criteria of environmental integrity, data availability, transparency, cost-efficiency, a sound institutional framework and transferability. To do so, in a first step, the general academic and political discussion on MRV is summarized; then, lessons are drawn from existing MRV systems; finally, proposals are put forward for the MRV of new sectoral market-based mechanisms.