POLICING environment treaties is often a hit-and-miss affair and many a blind eye has been turned. The Kyoto protocol must be different. When its limits on nations鈥� emissions of greenhouse gases come into force 18 months from now, there will be a desperate need for good science to back up government claims they are meeting their targets, and for good scientists to arbitrate when disputes arise.
Sadly, the necessary systems are not in place. Governments will be left to declare their emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and the four other gases covered by the protocol. They will do this by identifying sources of emissions, estimating the output of each, and adding them up. Sometimes, as when power stations burn a known amount of coal, the results should be fairly accurate. At other times, as when methane bubbles from landfill sites, there will be large uncertainties. Come 1 January 2008, the incentives to deliberately under-report emissions will be measured not just in green kudos but in millions of dollars. Nobody has yet cried fraud, but they will, and deciding who is right will be difficult.
There is a solution. To assess the 鈥渂ottom-up鈥� estimates made by governments there needs to be an independent 鈥渢op-down鈥� verification system based on measurements of the levels of greenhouse gases in the air. Tracking back from such readings will reveal where polluted air came from. In embryonic form, the system exists, run by a network of scientists known as the Global Atmosphere Watch under the auspices of the UN鈥檚 World Meteorological Organization. These scientists can spot major inconsistencies between official declarations of emissions and what the atmosphere tells them (see 鈥淜yoto promises are nothing but hot air鈥�), but their network still contains huge gaps and they need the cash and authority to do a proper job.
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The network will not only be looking for under-reporting of emissions. When countries establish baseline emission levels from which they will later make reductions, they will have an incentive to over-report. Also, the Kyoto protocol lets countries claim carbon credits for improving natural 鈥渟inks鈥� for greenhouse gases, and those claims too need policing.
At their next meeting in Nairobi this year, parties to the UN鈥檚 climate change convention must fund this monitoring network. It would do the same job as the worldwide seismic monitoring network set up under the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, providing open access to data so that scientists can verify government claims.
If the Kyoto protocol is to work, confidence in its estimates is essential. Without verification it will be fatally flawed.
