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Prior to Economic Treatment of Emissions and Their Uncertainties Under the Kyoto Protocol: Scientific Uncertainties That Must Be Kept in Mind

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Water, Air, & Soil Pollution: Focus

Abstract

In a step-by-step exercise – beginning at full greenhouse gas accounting (FGA) and ending with the temporal detection of emission changes – we specify the relevant physical scientific constraints on carrying out temporal signal detection under the Kyoto Protocol and identify a number of scientific uncertainties that economic experts must consider before dealing with the economic aspects of emissions and their uncertainties under the Protocol. In addition, we answer one of the crucial questions that economic experts might pose: how credible in scientific terms are tradable emissions permits? Our exercise is meant to provide a preliminary basis for economic experts to carry out useful emissions trading assessments and specify the validity of their assessments from the scientific point of view, that is, in the general context of a FGA-uncertainty-verification framework. Such a basis is currently missing.

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Notes

  1. FCA refers to a full carbon budget that encompasses and integrates all carbon-related components of all terrestrial ecosystems and is applied continuously in time. The components are typically described by adopting the concept of pools and fluxes to capture their functioning. The reservoirs can be natural or human-impacted and internally or externally linked by the exchange of carbon as well as other matter and energy. Net biome production (NBP) is the critical parameter to consider for long-term (decadal) carbon storage. NBP is only a small fraction of the initial uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere and can be positive or negative; at equilibrium it is zero (Steffen et al., 1998, p. 1393; Jonas et al., 1999, p. 9; Nilsson et al., 2000, pp. 2, 6–7; Shvidenko and Nilsson, 2003, Section 2). FGA simply extends the definition of FCA to include other relevant GHGs (Nilsson et al., (2007, Section 1). However, a clear agreement on which gases are included is still outstanding.

  2. In the context of the Kyoto Protocol the term certification is also used, particularly by policy makers. It is specified as in Merriam-Webster (1997):

    Certification (from certus = certain) → certify: to attest authoritatively: to attest as meeting a standard.

  3. In this context, the terms “third-party verification” or “independent verification” are also used.

  4. To overcome this shortcoming, stochastic events are often exogenously generated in a random fashion and introduced into prognostic models in retrospect, in the hope that their relevance will increase with respect to shorter time scales.

  5. The interrelation between U Model and U Account during the diagnostic mode of the emission-generating model can be made clear with the help of the notion of an ideal model. An ideal model perfectly reflects “reality” (inventory view) during the model’s diagnostic mode, that is, U Model is identical to U Account. However, in practice, models are generally not able to reproduce U Account for a number of reasons. An important reason is that, traditionally, model builders focused mainly on grasping mean values. To reflect more a complex reality, the models resolved more-detailed mean values. However, the consideration of uncertainties requires the opposite, that is, that models be simplified, ideally to a level that permits uncertainties to be treated as statistically independent (or as statistically independent as possible). Typically, the realization of a (sufficiently) ideal model is a task in itself.

  6. We thus distinguish between an uncertainty evaluation of Type A and Type B. Type A is the evaluation of uncertainty by the statistical analysis of a series of observations. By way of contrast, Type B is the evaluation of uncertainty by means other than the statistical analysis of series of observations (see Jonas and Nilsson, 2001, Section 4.1.2 for details).

  7. PCA as under the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (IPCC, 1997a, b, c) or the Kyoto Protocol do not form logical and consistent subsets of FCA (which is regarded as the scientifically appropriate approach) (Steffen et al., 1998, p.1394). However, a clear guideline on how to get from PCA to FCA, or vice versa, does not exist.

  8. The increasing width of our relative uncertainty classes and our classification of relative uncertainties as unreliable beyond class 3 is in agreement with the IPCC (1997a, p. A1.5), which advises against the application of the law of uncertainty propagation if the relative uncertainties that are combined under this law are greater than 60% (95% confidence level).

  9. The country scale is the principal reporting unit requested for reporting GHG emissions and removals under the Kyoto Protocol (FCCC, 1998, Articles 1 and 7).

  10. Articles 3.3 and 3.4 of the Protocol stipulate that human activities related to land-use change and forestry (LUCF) since 1990 can also be used to meet 2008–2012 commitments (FCCC, 1998). The part of the terrestrial biosphere that is affected by these Kyoto compliant LUCF activities is hereafter referred to as “Kyoto biosphere” and its complement as “non-Kyoto biosphere”.

  11. In the figures of our paper, we denote (if not expressis verbis) net emissions by x and their changes by Δx, respectively.

  12. See FCCC (1998, Article 5; 2002, pp. 3−13; 2004, pp. 31−32).

  13. In the context of the Kyoto Protocol, the total (or level) uncertainty reflects our real diagnostic (accounting) capabilities, that is, the uncertainty that underlies our past (base year) accounting as well as our current accounting and that we will have to cope with in reality at some time in the future (commitment year/period). The trend uncertainty reflects the uncertainty of the difference in net emissions between two years (base year and/or commitment year/period).

  14. In the commitment year/period t 2 we ask, in accordance with the concept of bottom–up/top–down verification, for the total uncertainty at that point in time, not whether or not the total uncertainty at t 2 can be decreased, for example, on the basis of correlative techniques (i.e., our emission and uncertainty knowledge at t 1, the base year).

  15. Gupta et al., (2003) argue differently but come to the same conclusion.

  16. The term “verification time” was first used by Jonas et al., (1999) and has been used by other authors since then. Actually, a more correct term is “detection time,” as signal detection does not imply verification. However, we continue to use the original term, as we do not consider it inappropriate given that signal detection must, in the long term, go hand in hand with bottom–up/top–down verification.

  17. Different combinations of time points are referred to in the context of the Kyoto Protocol to account for GHG emissions and removals by sink and source categories on the level of countries. Without restricting generality, we use t 1 and t 2. They may refer to any two points on the time scale T 0 = 1990 (or another base year), ..., T 15 = 2005, ..., T 18 = 2008, ..., T 20 = 2010, ..., T 22 = 2012. The year 2010 is used as commitment year if t 2 refers to the temporal average in net emissions over the commitment period 2008–2012.

  18. For data availability reasons and because of the excellent possibility of intercountry comparisons, the Protocol’s Annex I countries are used as net emitters. Their emissions/removals due to LUCF are excluded as the reporting of their uncertainties is only just becoming standard practice. The same conditions have been applied by Jonas et al., (2004b and 2004c) in their intercountry comparison of the EU member states under the EU burden sharing in compliance with the Kyoto Protocol. As a consequence of excluding emissions/removals due to land use change and forestry, our exercise here is restricted to the preparatory detection of uncertain flux signals (which we call emission signals), that is, the preparatory detection of stock-change signals is excluded. In Jonas et al., (2004a, Appendices A and C) the authors build a bridge to “stock changes” and explain how the latter can be considered.

  19. Here, we use the Und concept in its most simple form, which does not consider any correlation between the uncertainty in the base year (ɛ 1) and the uncertainty in the commitment year/period (ɛ 2). This is a consequence of making use of the triangle inequality, which does not permit correlations to be considered. In contrast, Nahorski et al., (2007, Section 8) make use of the UND concept by applying a stochastic approach, which allows correlation to be taken into account.

  20. The Und and VT concept only considers the uncertainty in the commitment year/period (ɛ2).

  21. To limit the undershooting occurring under the Und concept, Nahorski et al., (2007, Section 4) introduce the concept of a “reference reduction level.” The idea here is that the Protocols overall emission reduction (5.2% below the 1990 emission level in terms of CO2 equivalents) is considered as nonnegotiable, but will be reached by taking undershooting into consideration (i.e., through undershooting country-adjusted emission-limitation or reduction targets).

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  1. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361, Laxenburg, Austria

    M. Jonas & S. Nilsson

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  1. M. Jonas
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Jonas, M., Nilsson, S. Prior to Economic Treatment of Emissions and Their Uncertainties Under the Kyoto Protocol: Scientific Uncertainties That Must Be Kept in Mind. Water Air Soil Pollut: Focus 7, 495–511 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11267-006-9113-7

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