Documents on Monitoring and Compliance

Compliance procedures are essential to ensure the effectiveness and fairness of international agreements and should be included at the earliest stages in the design of a global climate agreement. Openness and transparency, informal linkages with stakeholders and non-governmental organisations, shared learning, balancing authority among international and national institutions and providing incentives for greater participation and levels of effort to reduce GHG are central to the effort to ensure compliance.

Kyoto Mechanisms, Monitoring and Compliance: from Kyoto to The Hague
COM/ENV/EPOC/IEA/SLT(2001)9
Also avalaible in French

This document compiles OECD and IEA analysis undertaken between 1998 and 2000 in support of the Annex I Expert Group. The work covers related sets of issues: the Kyoto mechanisms, monitoring, reporting and compliance under the Kyoto Protocol and the UNFCCC.

Key Features of Domestic Monitoring Systems under the Kyoto Protocol
COM/ENV/EPOC/IEA/SLT(2000)4

This paper considers monitoring systems that will be needed at the national level to implement the Protocol. The paper discusses three types of monitoring systems (national inventory systems, entity and/or project level emissions monitoring systems and assigned amount tracking systems) and identifies desirable features from a technical, managerial and institutional perspective.

Responding to Non-Compliance under the Climate Change Regime
ENV/EPOC(99)21

Given the legally binding nature of Parties' commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, purely facilitative approaches to non-compliance may not be sufficient. This paper summarises the opportunities to strengthen the regime's ability to identify, prevent and respond to cases of non-compliance. In particular, the paper describes how the Protocol's diverse implementation mechanisms have the potential to create a wide range of legal relationships that make possible more specific and concrete responses to non-compliance than those found in other multilateral environmental agreements.

Monitoring, Reporting and Review of National Performance under the Kyoto Protocol
ENV/EPOC(99)20

Entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol will add binding, quantified emission limitation commitments for Annex I Parties. This will require a shift in emphasis in the current "compliance" system under the Convention and a number of new tasks. This paper identifies actions to strengthen the monitoring, reporting and review functions that are needed for compliance assessment under the Kyoto Protocol. The paper emphasises that in the near term, it is important to begin to strengthen these functions under the Framework Convention on Climate Change. Early action can prepare the ground for rapid implementation of the Protocol once it enters into force, avoiding the need for a radical transition later.

Greenhouse Gas Emission Projections and Estimates of the Effects of Measures: Moving Towards Good Practice
ENV/EPOC(98)10

The UN FCCC requires Annex I Parties to provide national GHG projections and estimates of the effects of their policies and measures on emissions and sinks. So far, Parties have used a wide range of models and other methods to meet this reporting requirement. National experts have a variety of views on the purpose of projections and estimates of effects of measures, and the UN FCCC is ambiguous on this point. Projections can: show the consequences of action or inaction to reduce emissions; provide input for negotiations; or provide a reference or target trajectory of GHG emissions against which progress can be assessed. The choice of methods and approaches depends partly on the purpose of projections. Countries have also been constrained in their choice of method by the models, data and personnel available. There is little experience of projecting GHG and estimating effects of measures on emissions outside the energy sector. Improving methods and approaches will depend on research and data collection to evaluate trends and the actual effects of measures.

Ensuring Compliance with a Global Climate Change Agreement
ENV/EPOC(98)5/REV1

Compliance procedures are essential to ensure the effectiveness and fairness of international agreements and should be included at the earliest stages in the design of a global climate agreement. Openness and transparency, informal linkages with stakeholders and non-governmental organisations, shared learning, balancing authority among international and national institutions and providing incentives for greater participation and levels of effort to reduce GHG are central to the effort to ensure compliance. This study surveys a range of possible compliance procedures for a climate change agreement, reviewing lessons from the initial stages of implementation of the UN FCCC and from other international agreements. Three types of procedures are important: sound reporting requirements to provide data on national performance; verification and review mechanisms to assess compliance; and enforcement or other responses to address non-compliance. Sound data on GHG inventories will be the backbone of the system and data on projections and effects of policies will be essential to encourage corrective action. UN FCCC reporting and verification procedures have shown promising results to date. However to assure the implementation of legally binding targets, these procedures will need to be strengthened and new procedures to address non-compliance will be needed.