On Nov. 10, 2001, delegates from 160 nations, meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco, agreed on ground rules to implement the Kyoto Protocol to the 1992 Climate Change Convention. The Marrakesh Accords are widely expected to pave the way for ratification of both the protocol and the convention itself by the required 55 nations representing 55 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As a result, a series of multi-tiered international obligations will be triggered for convention parties, including requirements that industrialized countries reduce their GHG emissions to 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012 and provide significant funding to assist developing countries to curb GHGs while carrying out “sustainable development” programs.
The Marrakesh Accords also establish guidelines for emissions trading among parties to the Climate Change Convention through the “joint implementation” programs and “clean development mechanisms” (CDMs) that the U.S. had championed at Kyoto during the Clinton Administration and permit, as the U.S. had also requested, the limited use of forests and other carbon “sinks” as credits against a nation’s GHG obligations under the convention. Finally, the Marrakesh Accords provide for detailed reporting by the parties on their GHG-reduction efforts, specify penalties for noncompliance with GHG reduction targets and establish a technical committee to oversee both reporting and emissions trading credits under the convention.
