The role of scientific uncertainty in compliance with the Kyoto Protocol to the climate change convention

Under the climate change treaties, developed countries are under a quantitative obligation to limit their emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). This paper argues that although the climate change regime is setting up various measures and mechanisms, there will still be significant uncertainty about the actual emission reductions and the effectiveness of the regime will depend largely on how countries actually implement their obligations in practice. These uncertainties arise from the calculation of emissions from each source, the tallying up these emissions, adding or deducting changes due to land use change and forestry (LUCF) and finally from subtracting or adding emission reduction units (ERUs). Further, it points to the problem of uncertainty in the reductions as opposed to the uncertainty in the inventories themselves. The protocols have temporarily opted to deal with these problems through harmonisation in reporting methodologies and to seek transparency by calling on parties involved to use specific guidelines and to report on their uncertainty. This paper concludes that this harmonisation of reporting methodologies does not account for regional differences and that while transparency will indicate when countries are adopting strategies that have high uncertainty; it will not help to increase the effectiveness of the protocol. Uncertainty about compliance then becomes a critical issue. This paper proposes to reduce this uncertainty in compliance by setting a minimum requirement for the probability of compliance. © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.