Greenhouse gas emissions, climate change: mechanism for monitoring and reporting

PURPOSE: the revision of the monitoring mechanism set in place by Decision 280/2004/EC in order to respect the commitments and obligations under current and future international climate change agreements.

BACKGROUND: Decision No 280/2004/EC concerning a mechanism for monitoring Community greenhouse gas emissions and for implementing the Kyoto Protocol and its implementing provisions are the main monitoring, reporting, and verification instruments on GHG emissions. They set out the details for reporting anthropogenic GHG emissions by sources and removals by sinks, for providing information on national programmes to reduce emissions, on GHG emission projections, and on climate change policies and measures in accordance with the UNFCCC.

Six years of experience in implementing these two decisions and experience gained during international negotiations and in implementing various UNFCCC requirements have shown that there are areas where significant improvements could be made. In addition, the need to step up mitigation action at EU and Member State level and to fulfil new and upcoming international and domestic commitments, including the Europe 2020 strategy, requires an improved monitoring and reporting system.

The Commission proposes replacing Decision No 280/2004/EC by a Regulation on account of the broader scope of the legislation, the increased number of addressees, the highly technical and harmonised nature of the monitoring mechanism, and to facilitate its implementation.

IMPACT ASSESSMENT: a number of issues were dealt with in the impact assessment. These include: i) EU review and compliance cycle under the Effort Sharing Decision; ii) reporting requirements for emissions from international maritime transport; iii) reporting requirements related to the non-CO2 impacts of aviation on the global climate; iv) reporting requirements on adaptation; v) additional reporting requirements on LULUCF; v) reporting requirements on financial and technology support provided to developing countries; and vi) consistency with other EU legal instruments targeting air pollutants and improvements based on past experience with implementation.

LEGAL BASIS: Article 192 (1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).

CONTENT: the main objective of this Regulation is to help the Union and its Member States meet their national, Union, and international commitments and goals and to further develop policy through transparent, accurate, consistent, comparable and complete reporting. It seeks to improve the availability of information for Union policy and decision-making and the coordination and consistency of Union and Member State reporting under the UNFCCC.

This proposal provides for:

• the enhancement of the monitoring, reporting and review framework within the EU thus enabling implementation of domestic and international commitments and enabling implementation of current policies and effective further policy development;
• setting up a Union level review process of the GHG data submitted by the Member States hence ensuring that compliance with the ESD targets is assessed in a comprehensive, transparent, credible and timely manner, as stipulated in the Climate and Energy package;
• a prudent approach to reporting on emissions from international maritime transport and the LULUCF sector where policy discussions, both within the Union and internationally, are ongoing. It ensures that the monitoring mechanism provides an adequate framework for setting detailed reporting requirements at a later stage when a concrete policy outcome is reached, be it at international or Union level;
• ensuring coherence with existing Union policy on the non-CO2 climate impacts of aviation, as it requires for the Commission to assess biennially those impacts on the basis of the latest available emission data and scientific advancements;
• annual reporting so as to enable the annual assessment of the commitments made by the EU at the national and international level but also so as to enable early and effective corrective action;
• enhances, with regard to finance and technology, reporting on the basis of common methods, in line with the Union's obligation to provide transparent and complete information on the financial and technology support it provides to developing countries;
• the improvement of existing national systems in the Member States to address reporting on projections, policies and measures and provides consistency with other legal instruments targeting air pollutants;
• better quality assurance / quality control to increase the quality and completeness of the data provided and to simplify existing reporting requirements without imposing an undue administrative burden.

BUDGETARY IMPACT: the proposal has no impact on the EU’s budget.