November 2001
Years of hard work by CIEL and other environmental groups paid off on November 10, 2001 with the conclusion of the Seventh Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 7), in Marrakech, Morocco. Negotiators at COP 7 wrapped up the “crunch issues” that needed to be resolved for the Kyoto Protocol to enter into force, hopefully by the start of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002.
CIEL attorneys Glenn Wiser and Donald Goldberg played an active role in the Marrakech meeting, advising negotiators
and environmental groups on legal and institutional issues and options. CIEL’s work on compliance, mechanisms, and “sinks” is reflected in the final text, and several CIEL proposals helped shape the final document.
COP 7 reaffirmed the commitment of the Parties to adopt the Kyoto Protocol by solidifying the next major step towards ratification and entry into force. The Marrakech Accords provide the details needed to allow the Parties to bring the agreement home to their respective governments to begin the ratification effort. Following the Bonn Agreement reached in July at COP6, which outlined a political deal, Parties were tasked in Morocco with finalizing the language to give that deal the force of law.
In Marrakech, CIEL tracked three of the most contentious issues: compliance, emissions trading and forestry. CIEL continued its leadership on the issue of compliance, acting as the “point person” for the Climate Action Network, drafting analyses of decisions, lobbying key governments, and writing articles for the environmental newsletter, ECO. On emissions trading, CIEL worked to ensure the adoption of a mandatory rule to prevent Parties from over-selling emissions allowances and credits. CIEL’s work on forestry activities included close coordination with CAN colleagues lobbying governments to push for good rules related to Kyoto forestry projects.
Parties met in open session and behind closed doors for two weeks to reach a deal on the details of the text related to:
- Compliance
- Mechanisms to provide flexibility
- Monitoring, reporting and review (Articles “5, 7 and 8”)
- Land use, land use change and forestry
Compliance
The compliance regime that was adopted will be more robust and comprehensive than the compliance systems of all other international environmental agreement to date. The regime establishes consequences when a country fails to reach its emissions reduction target within the compliance period. These will include obligations to restore excess emissions at a rate of 1.3 to 1 and to develop a compliance action plan. Non-complying Parties will also lose their right to transfer emissions allowances to other countries. However, the question of whether these consequences will be binding in both a political and legal sense will be deferred until the first session of the COP/MOP (the Conference of the Parties meeting as the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, following entry into force of the Protocol). This deferral is partly due to the language of the Protocol, which requires a separate agreement or amendment by the COP/MOP to adopt legally binding consequences. The compliance rules contain a number of features proposed by CIEL, including a two-branch system, one for facilitation and the other for enforcement; a “Party-to-Party trigger,” which allows Parties to initiate compliance proceedings against other Parties; and rules for transparency and public participation.
For a more detailed report prepared by CIEL attorney Glenn Wiser on the compliance section of the Accords, please click here.
Mechanisms
The operating rules for emissions trading, the clean development mechanism, and joint implementation were completed. They introduce a great deal of flexibility into the system, including an early start for the clean development mechanism. Parties must have in place adequate systems for tracking and reporting their emissions to be eligible to participate in the mechanisms. One of the key features of emissions trading is the commitment period reserve, proposed by CIEL to prevent Parties from over-selling their emissions allowances. The reserve establishes a minimum level of allowances that Parties must maintain in their accounts during the compliance period.
Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry
The Marrakech Accords resolved many, though not all, of the rules for land use, land use change and forestry. Use of domestic “sinks” is greatly constrained; for example, in the forestry sector, credits are heavily discounted (by as much as 85%). Land use and forestry activities under the clean development mechanism are restricted to afforestation and deforestation, and crediting is limited to 1% of a Party’s assigned amount. CIEL sought to ensure that land use and forestry activities adhere to rigorous environmental standards. While much work remains to be done, an important provision adopted in Marrakech requires Parties to report on their legislative arrangements and administrative procedures for ensuring that domestic land use and forestry activities contribute to the conservation of biodiversity and sustainable use of natural resources.
Now Parties must build on the success in Marrakech by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol so that it enters into force in 2002, and by quickly adopting domestic measures to implement it. We believe the Protocol will prove to be an effective tool in the fight to curb global warming, and that it will grow stronger over time as Parties discover ever more effective and economical measures to reduce their emissions. We hope that the refusal of the United States to participate is only temporary, and that U.S. leaders will soon acknowledge that the problem of global warming can best be solved through global action as set forth in the Kyoto Protocol.