Five PACM Methodologies, One Exemption: The UN Carbon Market Opens to Clean Cooking

The UN carbon market has opened its doors to clean cooking. The Article 6.4 Supervisory Body has adopted two methodologies for household cooking activities under the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism (PACM), granting some projects an exemption from the mechanism’s annual downward adjustment, a key integrity safeguard, according to Carbon Pulse. The decision gives cookstove and fuel switching developers a compliance-grade crediting route under the UN’s new market for the first time, and brings the total number of PACM methodologies to five, all passed this year, per Argus Media.

Two Methodologies, Two Crediting Routes

The pair covers the two main ways clean cooking cuts emissions. One is the CLEAR methodology, the Comprehensive Lowered Emission Assessment and Reporting approach submitted by the Clean Cooking and Climate Consortium. The other is an update of a legacy Clean Development Mechanism methodology focused on fuel switching, per Argus Media.

The efficiency methodology, titled “Energy efficiency measures in household cooking”, sets procedures for Article 6.4 activities that distribute and operate improved cookstoves for fuelwood or charcoal in rural areas, where the fuel remains the same between the baseline and the project scenario, according to the draft methodology document. It emerged from a merger of two workstreams: the CLEAR proposal, received by the Methodological Expert Panel (MEP) on 12 May 2025, and a top-down revision of the approved CDM methodologies AMS-II.G and AMS-I.E. A public consultation on the CLEAR proposal ran from 16 June 2025 to 06 July 2025 and drew 16 submissions, per the MEP cover note.

The Downward Adjustment Exemption, Granted to One Methodology Only

The contested element is the waiver. The MEP recommended that the Supervisory Body exempt the household efficiency methodology from the downward adjustment in second and subsequent calendar years, acting under paragraphs 65 and 66 of version 1.0 of the mechanism’s Baseline Standard, per the cover note. That adjustment is a 1% annual tightening of the crediting baseline, designed to keep baselines progressively more ambitious over a project’s life, according to NewClimate Institute.

The exemption does not extend across the board. For the fuel switching methodology, the MEP decided against any waiver, judging that its historical-emissions baseline approach provides no sound basis for one, a position NewClimate Institute urged the Supervisory Body to retain, per the institute’s submission. Buyers should therefore treat the two methodologies differently when modeling credit volumes over time.

NewClimate Institute had argued against the exemption outright. In a submission dated 28 September 2026 ahead of the Supervisory Body’s 23rd meeting, the institute called on the body to “apply the 1% annual downward adjustment rather than granting an exemption”, arguing that health and development benefits, while important, do not substitute for progressively more ambitious crediting baselines, per the submission.

Reversal Buffer Requirements Survive the Debate

One safeguard held firm. The expert panel stood by its controversial decision to require clean cooking activities to contribute some of the credits they generate to a buffer against reversals, per Argus Media. The requirement reflects the fact that biomass-based emission reductions depend on maintaining higher landscape carbon stocks than under the baseline, stocks that remain exposed to natural and human-induced loss.

NewClimate Institute backed that stance, urging adoption of the methodology with its non-permanence provisions and the immediate forwarding and cancellation arrangements for buffer units linked to biomass-based emission reductions, warning that removing them would create an accounting gap, per the submission.

The Panel’s Own Cost Warning

The expert panel flagged a competitiveness risk in its information note. PACM clean cooking projects will be more expensive, and this may shift activity toward other areas: either non-clean-cooking project types within the UN mechanism, or clean cooking crediting outside PACM altogether, per the note reported by Argus Media. For developers weighing UN crediting against voluntary standards, that cost differential is now the central commercial variable.

Source: CarbonMeld — independent carbon credit market intelligence. Document-based quality scores and assessments across all major registries: carbonmeld.com

Monitoring Rules Remain in Transition

Integrity questions also persist on measurement. Mandatory stove use monitors are not required until 2029, a date NewClimate Institute wants brought forward, with conservative caps applied while survey-based estimates remain permitted, per the submission. The institute also called for kitchen performance tests at least annually to capture changes in fuel use and reduce over-crediting risk, and for retention of the 4.5% autonomous-adoption threshold unless stronger evidence supports revision. On the fuel switching side, it argued LPG should be excluded from eligibility to avoid Article 6.4 finance creating new dependence on fossil-fuel infrastructure.

What Buyers and Developers Should Watch

Three threads now matter. First, the registration pipeline: with five methodologies in place, all adopted this year, the pace of first project submissions will show whether the panel’s cost warning materializes. Second, the asymmetric exemption: credits from the efficiency methodology carry a different baseline trajectory than fuel switching credits, and due diligence should price that in. Third, the 2029 monitoring transition: projects locking in survey-based estimates now face a defined shift to direct stove usage data, which will shape verification costs and issuance reliability over the decade.