Crediting the Ground Beneath: Agroforestry Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration, Article 6.4 Evaluation Metrics, and the Governance Gap for Global South NDC Implementation
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Abstract
Agroforestry systems represent one of the most widely referenced land management practices in nationally determined contributions for soil organic carbon sequestration, yet their integration into international carbon crediting frameworks remains structurally incomplete. The operationalization of the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism under Article 6.4, which adopted five core methodological standards in 2025 covering baseline-setting, additionality, leakage, suppressed demand, and non-permanence and reversals, has created a critical juncture for evaluating whether agroforestry soil organic carbon projects can credibly generate tradeable emission reductions under internationally agreed metrics. This desk review critically examines that question through three analytical lenses: the technical adequacy of existing measurement, reporting, and verification protocols for agroforestry soil organic carbon; the degree of alignment between voluntary carbon market methodologies and the emerging Article 6.4 standards; and the implications of identified gaps for developing-country governments seeking to operationalize conditional nationally determined contribution commitments through carbon market participation. The paper introduces the concept of the Metric-Governance Alignment Gap to describe the structural disconnect between the technical measurement requirements of internationally agreed carbon crediting standards and the institutional and financial capacity of Global South agroforestry systems to satisfy them. The paper concludes that without deliberate governance redesign addressing this gap, Article 6.4 risks reinforcing existing inequities in carbon market access while failing to mobilize the agroforestry sequestration potential that more than 100 nationally determined contributions have formally identified.
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