(Story under construction)

By Mathew Carr*

Sept. 21, 2026 — Japan and Thailand are among many nations dismissing President Trump’s reckless behavior as they voluntarily accept a detailed international frameworks that guide their carbon-credit and climate programs.

—The quiet and purely logical transfer of a little climate power to the UN

Something rather important is happening beneath the radar of the overly politicised global climate negotiations.

Many countries are beginning to hand the United Nations a degree of oversight over programs that were once essentially matters of national energy and climate policy.

Presidents Trump and Xi need to talk about this trend when they meet this week.

Trump’s fake leadership on climate is much worse than Xi’s real leadership. Both could do better, to be sure.

Japan’s Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM) provides a particularly revealing example.

I’ll walk you through this.

The JCM was effectively created around the turn of the century by Japan as a bilateral system for generating carbon credits from emissions-reduction projects overseas.

But Japan is now operating the mechanism within the framework of Article 6.2 of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which governs the international transfer of so-called Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes, or ITMOs.

That means the system is no longer simply a Japanese program.

Japan has voluntarily accepted international rules covering authorisation, accounting, registries, transfers and the avoidance of double counting.

In March 2025, Japan formally implemented its authorisation of the JCM as an Article 6 cooperative approach and revised its procedures for authorisation and corresponding adjustments. (Ministry of the Environment, Japan⁠)

Japan subsequently submitted its Article 6 initial report to the UNFCCC.

That report explicitly identifies the Japanese JCM registry as the registry used for tracking and recording JCM credits as ITMOs.

It also says that Japan will authorise international transfers and use of JCM credits as ITMOs. (UNFCCC⁠)

And now comes the particularly interesting part.

The UN’s Article 6 technical expert review team (TERT) process is examining Japan’s implementation.

The UNFCCC published the technical expert review report on September 18, 2026, following a review conducted in Bonn in December 2025. (UNFCCC⁠)

The TERT identified as a significant inconsistency the requirement that Japan have arrangements consistent with Article 6 guidance “for tracking ITMOs.” The report gives this the area-for-improvement ID 18.A/4.D, and marks it “Yes” under significant inconsistency. 

6 months later

At the June 2026 Bonn climate talks, Japan’s JCM Implementation Agency presented an ‘Article 6 aligned registry’ — wording that indicates alignment with the Paris Agreement’s Article 6 framework, but does not by itself establish that the registry had already satisfied all Article 6 requirements.

So it is unclear as of September 2026 if Japan has fully complied with the TERT requests yet it appears it is at least doing so.

Thailand offers another illustration.

Its JCM arrangement with Japan operates through Thailand’s Premium T-VER programme, with both governments committing to transparency over methodologies, registration, issuance, use and relevant documentation.

Their rules also require relevant authorisation information to be made public.

The system is no longer theoretical.

In November 2025, Japan and Thailand completed their first international transfer of JCM mitigation outcomes: 1,009 tonnes of CO₂-equivalent from a floating-solar project.

The registry records the authorisation status and serial number of the transferred credits.

This illustrates a much bigger development in international governance.

Countries are not literally surrendering control of their energy systems to the UN.

They remain responsible for their own projects, laws and climate policies.

But when they want their carbon reductions to become internationally transferable ITMOs, they increasingly have to operate within rules established through the Paris Agreement and subject themselves to international reporting, registry and technical-review processes.

The UN’s international registry makes this architecture even clearer: it is designed to track ITMOs from issuance through transfer and use, including information about their authorisation. (UNFCCC⁠)

The significance is therefore less dramatic than a formal “UN takeover” — but more consequential.

Climate collaboration is becoming kind-of sexy as Trump’s greedy and reckless energy dominance strategy becomes increasingly embarrassing

National climate programmes are becoming connected to an international accounting system in which transparency, authorisation and compliance can no longer be decided entirely at national level.

That is the quiet transfer of some power worth watching because it is absolutely needed to solve a global problem.

This is not countries succumbing to the UN.

These are righteous nations voluntarily offering to help each save the climate for all our children over and above their strict national legal obligations.

Please note, Presidents Trump and Xi.

*with ChatGPT…mostly checked by me, a human. Still beware if you are investing on this info.