Documents: Council Decision of 26 April 1999 amending Decision 93/389/EEC for a Monitoring Mechanism of Community CO2 and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9388.00221
• Date: 01 November 1999
• Published date: 01 November 1999

Documents Volume 8 Issue 3 1999

Council Decision 1999/296/EC of 26 April 1999 amending

Decision 93/389/EEC for a monitoring mechanism of

Community CO

2

and other greenhouse gas emissions (OJ

L117, 5.5.1999, at 35), key parts of which are reproduced

below, entered into force on 1 May 1999. The Decision

is discussed in the article by Joy Hyvarinen in the pre-

vious issue of RECIEL (Joy Hyvarinen, ‘The European

Community’s Monitoring Mechanism for CO

2

and other

Greenhouse Gases: the Kyoto Protocol and other Recent

Developments’, RECIEL, 8:2 (1999) 191). Please note that

some amendments, which this article stated were

expected, are not part of the final Decision, mainly: the

Commission is to take further steps to promote (not

ensure) the comparability and transparency of inven-

tories (not accuracy, completeness and verifiability)

(Article 3), it does not need to refer to the absence or

incompleteness of data in its report (Article 6) and the

Committee-type has not been changed (Article 8).

Joy Hyvarinen

Ed: The full text of the original Monitoring Decision and

this amendment is available from the EUR-Lex homepage

(http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/index.html).

EXTRACTS

Council Decision of 26 April 1999 Amending Decision

93/389/EEC for a Monitoring mechanism of Community

CO

2

and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Article 1

Articles 1 to 8 of Decision 93/389/EEC shall be replaced

by the following:

‘Article 1

This Decision establishes a mechanism for:

monitoring all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emis-

sions not controlled by the Montreal Protocol in the

Member States; and

evaluating progress towards meeting commitments in

respect of these emissions.

Article 2 (National programmes)

1. The Member States shall devise, publish and

implement national programmes for limiting and/or

reducing their anthropogenic emissions by sources and

enhancing removals by sinks of all greenhouse gases not

controlled by the Montreal Protocol in order to contrib-

ute to:

the stabilisation of CO

2

emissions by 2000 at 1990 lev-

els in the Community as a whole, assuming that other

Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

352

leading countries undertake commitments along simi-

lar lines, and on the understanding that Member

States which start from relatively low levels of energy

consumption and therefore low emissions measured

on a per capita or other appropriate basis are entitled

to have CO

2

targets and/or strategies corresponding

to their economic and social development, while

improving the energy efficiency of their economic

activities, as agreed at the Council meetings of 29

October 1990, 13 December 1991 and 15 and 16

December 1994,

the fulfilment of the Community’s commitments relat-

ing to the limitation and/or reduction of all green-

house gas emissions not controlled by the Montreal

Protocol under the UN Framework Convention on Cli-

mate Change and under the Kyoto Protocol,

transparent and accurate monitoring of the actual and

projected progress of Member States, including the

contribution made by Community measures, in meet-

ing any agreed national contributions to the Com-

munity’s commitments under the UN Framework Con-

vention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol.

These programmes shall be periodically updated.

2. Each Member State shall include in its national pro-

gramme:

(a) estimates of the effect of policies and measures on

emissions and removals and incorporation of these in

projections for CO

2

and other greenhouse gases not con-

trolled by the Montreal Protocol between the base year

and 2000, in line with the reporting requirements under

the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change;

(b) as a minimum for the six greenhouse gases listed in

Annex A to the Kyoto Protocol (carbon dioxide (CO

2

),

methane (CH

4

), nitrous oxide (N

2

O), hydrofluorocarbons

(HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulphur hexafluor-

ide (SF

6

)),

its 1990 base year anthropogenic emissions of carbon

dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide in accordance with

Article 3(1),

its 1990 and/or 1995 base year anthropogenic emissions

of hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur

hexafluoride determined in accordance with Article 3(1),

inventories of its anthropogenic emissions by sources

and removal by sinks, determined in accordance with

Article 3(1),