Complying with the Kyoto Protocol Requirements: Capacity Needs in Central and Eastern Europe

This document is also available in Adobe PDF format (407KByte): CBreport.pdf

Acknowledgement text:

The authors thank Fiona Mullins of Environmental Resources Management, for her background research and writing, without which this report would not have been possible.  We also are grateful to WRI's Dr. Elena Petkova for her invaluable contributions to this report.  WRI's Jim Perkaus and Frances Seymour also provided valuable insights and suggestions, for which we are grateful.  We are also grateful for the advice and guidance of Dr. Zsuzsanna Iványi, as well as other Regional Environmental Center staff who made significant contributions. We must also acknowledge our indebtedness to Center for Energy Efficiency - EnEffect (Bulgaria), Center for Transport and Energy (Czech Rep.), Center for Environmental Studies (Hungary), Institute for Sustainable Development (Poland), Terra Millennium III (Romania), Slovenian E-Forum (Slovenia), as well as to the survey respondents, who provided us with the insights that make up the core of this work.  We are grateful for the comments, suggestions, and information provided by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Stéphane Willems and Diana Barbu, the Center for Clean Air Policy's Ellina Levina, and the U.S. EPA's Bill Irving and Jeremy Schreifels.  We thank Carollyne Hutter for her careful editorial review and suggestions.  We greatly appreciate the financial support provided by the Italian Ministry of Environment, Department for Global, Environment, International and Regional Conventions.

The information in the paper is drawn from surveys of countries currently participating in the joint program Capacity for Climate Protection in Central and Eastern Europe led by the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe and the World Resources Institute.  Non-governmental organization (NGO) partners in each of these countries worked with staff in both government and non-governmental institutions to obtain responses to a survey that provided the basis for information presented in this report.  Respondents included the following: staff of national statistical offices, national focal points for the UNFCCC Secretariat, members of National Commissions on Climate Change, staff of private companies, researchers at private environmental organizations, members of various ministries (including staff involved in national inventory preparation), and academics.

About the Authors

Andrew Buchman is the Communications Coordinator for the Institutions and Governance Program, and Kevin Baumert is an Associate in the Climate, Energy and Pollution Program, at the World Resources Institute.  Francesco Rizzo is a Project Officer in the Climate Change Program at the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe.

Introduction

In December 1997, the third Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change met in Kyoto, Japan to negotiate limits to greenhouse gas emissions.  Two main features of the Kyoto Protocol, if it enters into force, are (1) legally binding commitments by Annex I[1] countries to collectively reduce GHG emissions by more than five percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12, and (2) a set of mechanisms—including international emissions trading and joint implementation—to help countries achieve their commitments at the lowest possible cost.

While not as high profile as the emission commitments and trading provisions, the Kyoto Protocol also contains critical provisions for emission monitoring, government reporting, and review of information.  These functions are needed to ensure that countries are complying with the treaty's emission reduction commitments.

Specifically, Article 5 of the Protocol requires countries to develop a "national system" for estimating greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals by sinks.  Article 7 builds on the existing reporting obligations under the Climate Convention by requiring annual submissions of greenhouse gas inventories; more thorough but periodic national communications; and any "supplemental information" that may be required to demonstrate fulfillment of the Kyoto commitments.  Finally, Article 8 requires countries to avail themselves to independent auditing and review by "expert review teams."

Furthermore, additional requirements are likely for countries that wish to participate in international emissions trading and joint implementation.  Countries must establish registries to track emissions transfers and introduce regulations to enable participation in the Kyoto mechanisms.

Economies in transition, including the six Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries examined in this report, have identified the above issues as priority areas for capacity building.[2] , The challenge of building capacity in these areas is particularly daunting for CEE countries, whose limited resources are currently stretched in managing the transitions to a market economy and, for some, achieving the political objective of joining the European Union.

Official submissions by economies in transition to the Climate Convention Secretariat reflect that "Parties perceive capacity building not only as a process in which individuals and institutions increase their abilities and competencies to understand and deal with climate change . . . it is viewed as an investment in people, institutions, information and knowledge, and technologies . . . that together enable EIT Parties to fulfill their commitments under the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol."[3]  Countries have identified major capacity building needs related to climate protection, including:[4] 

1.      Lack of information on and awareness of climate change issues;

2.      Lack of regular opportunities to exchange information among other Parties;

3.      Limited number of institutions, organizations, and experts involved and capable of carrying out the necessary research, analysis, estimates, projections, assessments, studies, and verification and monitoring in the area of climate change;

4.      The relatively low priority of climate change as compared to the economic, social, and other more immediate issues faced by economies in transition.

From these general needs, more specific requirements emerge in the context of implementing the Kyoto Protocol, including improving the quality of greenhouse gas inventories and formulating policies to reduce emissions.[5] 

CEE countries have already made substantial progress in building capacity to fulfill some Kyoto Protocol requirements, including their national systems for inventory preparation.  Increasingly, they are making efforts to clearly identify institutional and regulatory gaps.  This is especially important because CEE countries are, for the most part, in a unique position relative to other industrialized Parties.  They have the potential to realize benefits from coupling strong domestic actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with participation in the Kyoto mechanisms. 

First, emission levels are already far below base year emissions for most of the economies in transition (See Table 1).  The decline in emissions is primarily a result of the severe economic recession in the early 1990s, and market reforms introduced over the last decade that have improved energy efficiency in some countries. Second, international emissions trading (IET) and joint implementation (JI) could help translate reduction opportunities into substantial economic, environmental, and financial benefits.  Combining strong domestic action with participation in the Kyoto mechanisms could deliver substantial benefits to CEE countries, including upgraded technological capacity; improved energy efficiency, better air quality and health, and financial flows from the West.

Recognizing the potential benefits of the Kyoto Protocol, along with the needed capacity improvements, is a first step toward forming strategies to enable CEE countries to meet their commitments.  The next step is to move from these general priorities to specific, targeted actions to meet specific capacity needs.  This paper provides a detailed analysis of capacity needs in six surveyed countries—Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia—for establishing national systems and preparing supplementary information, and implementing the Kyoto mechanisms—the general priority areas identified above. 

Section I of the paper outlines the specific elements of an implementation framework required for compliance with the Kyoto Protocol. This section also assesses the capacity each country has to perform these requirements, and ranks current capacity as high, medium, or low.  Section II identifies the challenges and capacity deficits common to the six CEE countries surveyed for this report.  In so doing, the section presents areas where countries can collaborate to meet common goals.  Section III presents priority capacity needs by country. This section offers recommendations for country investment in specific areas and identifies where national political will and donor support is needed. The paper concludes with a review of regional progress, challenges, and next steps for national CEE governments and the international climate community.

The information in the paper is drawn from surveys of countries currently participating in the joint program Capacity for Climate Protection in Central and Eastern Europe led by the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe and the World Resources Institute.  Nongovernmental organization (NGO) partners in each of these countries worked with staff in both government and nongovernment institutions to obtain responses to a survey (attached as Appendix I) that provided the basis for information presented in this report.  Respondents included the following: staff of national statistical offices, national focal points for the UNFCCC Secretariat, members of National Commissions on Climate Change, staff of private companies, researchers at private environmental organizations, members of various ministries (including staff involved in national inventory preparation), and academics.  Appendix II presents a matrix of the responses to the survey.  A first attempt at mapping current international efforts to build capacity in the region and priority needs is provided in Appendix III.

The material in this paper reflects the views of the individuals who were interviewed and does not represent official government positions.  Survey questions were based on the draft national systems guidelines document.[6]

I.  Building a Kyoto Protocol Infrastructure[7]

Effective implementation of the Kyoto Protocol will require countries to build capacity in several important areas:

A) national systems for inventory preparation, management and reporting,

B) expert review, and

C) participation in the Kyoto mechanisms. 

This section addresses these areas and includes assessments regarding each country's state of readiness and potential quality of implementation.  Several elements of a Kyoto infrastructure build on existing requirements found in the Climate Convention, including greenhouse gas inventories, reporting, and in-depth reviews.

A) National Systems: Inventory Preparation, Management, and Reporting

Article 5 of the Kyoto Protocol requires each Annex I country to have a "national system" for greenhouse gas emission estimation in place no later than 2007.  The Parties have since elaborated draft guidelines that state:

 
"A national system includes all institutional, legal and procedural arrangements made within a Party included in Annex I to the Convention for estimating anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of all greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol, and for reporting and archiving inventory information."[8]

UNFCCC draft guidelines for national systems are heavily informed by the IPCC Good Practice Guidance and Uncertainty Management in National Greenhouse Gas Inventories,[9] which emphasizes procedures to ensure that inventories are high quality and free of systematic bias.

Accordingly, the three important national systems elements include:

1.      Inventory compilation,

2.      Quality control, and

3.      Information management. 

These elements are central to assessing whether a country is in compliance with its greenhouse gas emissions obligations, and are examined in the following three subsections.

Box __ summarizes the survey responses on national capacity to meet inventory preparation and management and reporting requirements.  For each of the subtasks—estimating inventory uncertainty, compilation in common reporting format, application of general-inventory-level quality control, annual checks of data and calculations, facilitating expert review, and archiving—the respondents' assessments of potential performance quality is indicated.

Box__             Capacity to Meet Inventory Preparation and Management Requirements[10]

[Please note that H = high; M = medium; L = low]