6.5.1. Elements of Reporting

Article 3.3. If all carbon pools are to be included when ARD activities are reported, it would be helpful to provide accounting methods in the Guidelines for pools other than aboveground biomass and soil carbon. If methods other than those in the Guidelines are used, a description of the methods of measurement and analysis would improve transparency. If ARD activities have to be reported separately, reporting guidelines will have to be improved. For pools that the Guidelines already deal with, refinements may also be required to better reflect nonlinear decay processes in the soil, for example. Priority could be given to improving methods for carbon pools that undergo significant changes in carbon stocks, as well as pools that are to be used in assessing compliance with commitments. For improved transparency and verifiability, reporting for ARD may need to be geo-referenced.

Article 3.4. Reporting of additional activities could be similar to reporting of ARD. As before, the key decisions are generic-for example, the issue of comprehensive accounting for GHG. Unlike Article 3.3, however, potential activities under Article 3.4 are not yet defined by the FCCC. This circumstance limits the extent of the discussion here. Most broadly defined, however, additional activities (FCCC, 1998a) can be accounted by the Guidelines. The definitions of some narrowly defined activities might need to be clarified.

Articles 6 and 12. The Guidelines were not designed for reporting of projects, and the degree of their improvement would depend on their use. At a minimum, reporting of a summary of changes in net GHG emissions and removals from all projects may be all that Parties decide is required. If so, this option would be relatively easy to operationalize. If a complete record of carbon impacts of each individual project is required, however, the level of effort to develop such guidelines could be considerable. Similarly, developing guidelines to estimate environmental and socioeconomic impacts may be equally involved. Whichever options are chosen, the factors to be considered include baselines, carbon stocks conserved or changed, GHG emissions and removals, system boundaries, leakage, positive spillover, reporting for monitoring of different activities, identification of carbon stock changes for different years, and frequency of measurements and reporting. The level of accuracy required for projects is generally higher than that for national inventories, so the reporting requirements for verification and monitoring are likely to differ from those for national inventories. For each of the options identified above, a key decision is whether Parties could choose their own accounting methods or whether internationally agreed methods would be stipulated for reporting-and if so, for which of the foregoing issues.
Although the reporting needs of the Protocol differ significantly at the project and national levels, several generic issues apply. A key decision that could apply to several Articles in the Protocol is the treatment of wood products. Parties would need to indicate priorities before work could begin to improve the Guidelines, if at all. Some unranked options are included in Table 6-5.

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