Reporting, Accounting and Review

The Kyoto Protocol maintains and extends the two regular reporting requirements established under the Convention for Parties included in Annex I; an annual report and a periodic national communication.

For each reporting requirement, Parties included in Annex I are expected to submit the information elements as required by the Convention and, in addition, Parties must include supplementary information related to the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. In this way, the submission of the reports under the Kyoto Protocol also fulfils the Party’s reporting obligations under the Convention.

In addition to the annual report and the national communication, the Kyoto Protocol establishes two special reports related to the accounting of emissions and assigned amounts for each commitment period:

• The report to facilitate the calculation of the assigned amount ( ‘initial report’) ;
• The report upon expiration of the additional period for fulfilling commitments (‘true-up period report’).

The Kyoto Protocol also incorporates and enhances the review procedures under the Convention and establishes a Compliance Committee to resolve any potential problems identified during the review process. 

Each report under the Kyoto Protocol submitted by a Party included in Annex I is subject to review by an expert review team (ERT). The ERT conducts a thorough and technical assessment of the Party’s implementation of its Kyoto Protocol commitment and prepares a review report.

If the ERT identifies a problem with a Party’s implementation of a particular commitment pertaining to language of a mandatory nature influencing the fulfilment of commitments that still exists after the Party included in Annex I has been provided with opportunities to correct the problem within the time frames established under the relevant review procedures, the ERT may list the problem as a ‘question of implementation’ in its final review report. All review reports, including those that do not list any questions of implementation, will be forwarded to the Compliance Committee for consideration.