Remedying Discord in the Accord: Accounting Rules for Annex I Pledges in a Post-2012 Climate Agreement

The document argues that the lack of harmonized accounting rules for Annex I pledges in the Copenhagen Accord creates uncertainty regarding the actual level of climate ambition. It recommends that the Conference of the Parties (COP) mandate the development of consistent, transparent, and accurate measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) guidelines. Specifically, it addresses the need for standardized coverage of greenhouse gases and sectors, rules for land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF), the prevention of double counting in international offsets, and the management of surplus assigned amount units (AAUs) from the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period.

• The authors recommend that the Conference of the Parties (COP) adopt a decision to develop accounting rules that are "consistent, complete, comparable, transparent, and accurate" and a separate decision to "clarify the assumptions underlying Annex I pledges."
• The paper suggests that the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) should be tasked with developing MRV guidelines based on the Guidelines for the Preparation of Annex I National Communications to ensure target accounting is rigorous.
• A lack of standardized coverage for greenhouse gases and sectors may compromise the completeness of targets and make it difficult to assess comparability and prevent leakage, especially if "economy-wide" remains undefined.
• LULUCF accounting rules significantly impact the perceived ambition of pledges; for example, forest management contributions in Japan could vary from -2.9 percent to 1.5 percent in 2020 relative to 1990 levels depending on the rules used.
• To maintain environmental integrity for international offsets, the authors propose that Parties either use only CDM approved methodologies or submit bilateral/multilateral methods to a third-party entity for review and approval.
• There is a risk of double counting emissions reductions if international offsets are used for domestic compliance or if they are not additional to a host country's planned actions under their Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs).
• The use of surplus assigned amount units (AAUs) from the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period could reduce the actual amount of abatement required between 2013 and 2020, potentially making emissions reductions "far less than current assessments indicate."
• The authors propose a supplementary form for Annex I Parties to increase transparency, requiring details on the scope of gases, LULUCF methodologies, the percentage of targets met via offsets, and the use of surplus AAUs.

APA

Levin, K., Tirpak, D., Daviet, F., & Morgan, J. (2010). Remedying Discord in the Accord: Accounting Rules for Annex I Pledges in a Post-2012 Climate Agreement. World Resources Institute. https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/remedying_discord_in_the_accord.pdf

Chicago

Levin, Kelly, Dennis Tirpak, Florence Daviet, and Jennifer Morgan. Remedying Discord in the Accord: Accounting Rules for Annex I Pledges in a Post-2012 Climate Agreement. World Resources Institute, 2010. https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/remedying_discord_in_the_accord.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Levin |first1=Kelly |last2=Tirpak |first2=Dennis |last3=Daviet |first3=Florence |last4=Morgan |first4=Jennifer |title=Remedying Discord in the Accord: Accounting Rules for Annex I Pledges in a Post-2012 Climate Agreement |publisher=World Resources Institute |date=November 2010 |url=https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/remedying_discord_in_the_accord.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{levin2010remedying, author = {Levin, Kelly and Tirpak, Dennis and Daviet, Florence and Morgan, Jennifer}, title = {{Remedying Discord in the Accord: Accounting Rules for Annex I Pledges in a Post-2012 Climate Agreement}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, year = {2010}, month = nov, url = {https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/remedying_discord_in_the_accord.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }