Verifying compliance with and unmonitorable climate convention

The Framework Convention an Climate Change requires all parties to report an anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions for all sources and on plans and trends that mill limit future emissions. Current arrangements for setting targets ignore problems with monitoring and reporting that are technical and intractable. The accuracy of countries' baseline emissions reports is essentially unverifiable because of the wide variability in emissions factors and the sparse spatial distribution of methane and nitrous oxide sources. In addition, verification of progress towards controlling carbon dioxide emissions is limited by the lack of pedictability of linked economic activities. These problems are unlikely to be salved by some of the proposed solutions, which include increasing levels of expenditure by international review bodies, establishing proxies for emissions, investing in major on-site inspection, or delaying commitments for setting targets for national planning. Positive seeps could include a further but limited deployment of monitoring technology, new targets based on intensities for carbon dioxide instead of national emissions, management targets and measures for methane in addition to national emissions targets, more detailed independent evaluations by environmental organizations and others in national planning, clarification of guidelines for reporting and documentation, and additional funding for the environmental agencies charged with environmental research and planning in developing countries.