Guidelines under Articles 5, 7 and 8: Methodological Issues, Reporting and Review under the Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol’s effectiveness depends upon two critical factors: whether Parties included in Annex I follow the Protocol’s rulebook and comply with their commitments; and whether the emissions data used to assess compliance are reliable. Recognizing this, the Kyoto Protocol and Marrakesh Accords, adopted by CMP 1 in Montreal, Canada, in December 2005, include a set of monitoring and compliance procedures for the first commitment period (2008–2012) to enforce the Protocol’s rules, address any compliance problems, and avoid any error in calculating emissions data and accounting for transactions under the three Kyoto mechanisms (emissions trading, clean development mechanism and joint implementation) and activities related to land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF).

For the second commitment period (2013–2020) the CMP adopted a series of decisions that builds upon the CMP.1 decisions and introduced the necessary updates to operationalize monitoring and compliance. Please click here for a user-friendly document for the reporting, accounting and review requirements for Parties included in Annex I for the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.
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The Protocol’s monitoring procedures are based on existing reporting and review procedures under the Convention (decisions 24/CP.19 and 13/CP.20), building on experience gained in the climate change process over the past decades. They also involve additional accounting procedures that are needed to track and record Parties’ holdings and transactions of Kyoto Protocol units: assigned amount units (AAUs), certified emission reductions (CERs), emission reduction units (ERUs) and removal units (RMUs) .

The table below shows the main decisions on accounting, reporting and review of emissions and removals and assigned amounts.

For more information about the rulebook for the first commitment period (2008–2012) please click here.

Main data sources for the rules on accounting, reporting and review of emissions and removals and accounting of assigned  amounts

	First commitment period (2008-2012)	Second commitment period (2013-2020)
Kyoto Protocol	Kyoto Protocol	Kyoto Protocol and the Doha Amendment
Assigned amounts	Decision 13/CMP.1	Decisions 13/CMP.1 , 1/CMP.8 , 2/CMP.8, 3/CMP.11 (annex I) and 2/CMP.11
Standard electronic format tables	Decision 14/CMP.1	Decision 3/CMP.11 (annex II)
Methodologies and common metrics		Decision 4/CMP.7
Reporting requirements	Decision 15/CMP.1	Decisions 15/CMP.1 , 4/CMP.7, 1/CMP.8, 2/CMP.8 and 3/CMP.11 (annex III)
Land use, land-use change and forestry activities under the Kyoto Protocol (KP-LULUCF)	Decisions 16/CMP.1, 17/CMP.1 and 6/CMP.3	Decisions 16/CMP.1, 2/CMP.7, 2/CMP.8 (annex II), 6/CMP.9
National system	Decision 19/CMP.1	Decisions 19/CMP.1 and 3/CMP.11
Adjustments	Decisions 20/CMP.1 and 21/CMP.1	Decisions 20/CMP.1, 21/CMP.1 and 4/CMP.11
Review guidelines	Decisions 22/CMP.1, 6/CP.5, 19/CP.8	Decisions 22/CMP.1, 4/CMP.11, 13/CP.20