United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 1992
Date of signature: 9 May 1992
Entered into force: 21 March 1994
Contracting Parties to the Convention: A full list of contracting parties is available here
What are the aims and requirements of the Convention?
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was agreed in 1992, with the overall aim of stabilising the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, at a level that will prevent interference with the climate system (Article 2). The Convention requires the stabilisation of these concentrations over an extended period of time, to ensure that ecosystems adapt naturally to climate change and sustainable economic development is not jeopardised.
The Convention is of a framework nature. It imposes a general requirement upon Contracting Parties' governments to adopt policies and make various commitments towards the stabilisation and eventual reduction of greenhouse gas concentrations. A Party's commitments under the Convention depend upon which Annex that party is assigned to under the Convention's concept of 'common but differentiated responsibilities'. This principle requires industrialised countries, including the United Kingdom, to bear the greater burden in combating climate change under the Convention, on the grounds that they are historically responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions.
Article 4 of the Convention requires Parties to formulate, implement, publish and review national and regional programmes to mitigate climate change. These programmes should address both greenhouse gas emissions from human sources and greenhouse gas removals by natural sinks, for all greenhouse gases not covered by the Montreal Protocol
Parties to the Convention have to aim, individually or jointly, to return to their 1990 levels their anthropogenic emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
Convention bodies
The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the ultimate decision-making body under the Convention. The COP comprises all the parties to the Convention, whilst the presidency rotates among the UN regions of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Central and Eastern Europe, and Western Europe and Others. Meetings of the COP are traditionally held annually at the home of the Secretariat in Bonn, although a meeting may be held in another country if a Party offers to host it. The COP is responsible for ensuring the progress of the UNFCCC and for reviewing the efforts and commitments the Contracting Parties.
Two permanent subsidiary bodies were also set up under the Convention. The Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) was established to provide the COP with advice on 'scientific, technological and methodological matters'. The SBSTA is also charged with the promotion of environmentally friendly technologies and undertaking technical work to advance the guidelines for the preparation of national reports and inventories. The UNFCCC also describes the role of the SBSTA as providing 'the link between the scientific information provided by expert sources such as the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) on the one hand, and the policy-oriented needs of the COP on the other'.
The other body created under the UNFCCC was the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI), which provides the COP with advice on all matters relating to the implementation of the Convention. The SBI is responsible for monitoring the national reports and inventories submitted by the Parties, as well as the financial assistance provided to non-Annex 1 Parties.
The SBI and SBSTA meet twice a year, normally at the meeting of the COP and at another meeting held at the Secretariat in Bonn.
Definitions of terms used in the Convention
The following definitions are significant when considering the application
of the Convention and its later Protocol (see the Kyoto Protocol section) to CCS activities.
Emissions are defined as 'the release of greenhouse gases and/or their
precursors into the atmosphere over a specified area and period of time'
(Article 1.4).
Reservoir is defined as 'a component or components of the climate system
where a greenhouse gas or a precursor of a greenhouse gas is stored' (Article
1.7).
A sink is defined as 'any process, activity or mechanism which removes
a greenhouse gas, an aerosol or a precursor of a greenhouse gas from the
atmosphere' (Article 1.8).
Source is defined as 'any process or activity which releases a greenhouse
gas, an aerosol or a precursor of a greenhouse gas into the atmosphere'
(Article 1.9).
Sinks and storage under the UNFCCC
A feature of the UNFCCC is its promotion of 'sinks' and 'reservoirs' to remove greenhouse gases that have been emitted into the atmosphere. Where a greenhouse gas is emitted from a source, it can be removed from the atmosphere by a sink and stored in a reservoir. Reservoirs may take the form of oceans or forests, given the wide definition of the term 'climate system' which includes the 'totality of atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and geosphere and their interactions'. Parties are encouraged to 'promote and cooperate in the conservation and enhancement, as appropriate, of sinks and reservoirs [...], including biomass, forests and oceans as well as other terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems' (Article 4.1 (d)).
Key legal issues concerning CCS
The applicability of the Convention to CCS projects should not
be considered in isolation from the Kyoto Protocol; for this reason a further
and more detailed analysis of the key legal issues concerning CCS, is to
be found in the Kyoto Protocol section.
The Convention itself does not make any reference to CCS within the body of its text. However, Parties are required, under Article 4.1 (c) to:
'Promote and cooperate in the development, application and diffusion, including transfer, of technologies, practices and processes that control, reduce or prevent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol in all relevant sectors, including the energy, transport, industry, agriculture, forestry and waste management sectors'.
CCS may be viewed as a technology which would control, reduce and prevent the emission of greenhouse gas, in accordance with this provision.
The term 'emission' - defined as the release of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere - is of particular significance when considering CCS activities under the UNFCCC. Captured CO2, which does not find its way into the atmosphere, could be classified as an avoided emission, and it has been suggested, should therefore be treated as an emission reduction. This concept is discussed in greater detail in the Kyoto Protocol section.
The Convention sanctions a precautionary approach, which requires that, where serious or irreversible damage is threatened, measures should be taken to prevent or minimise the effects of climate change. Lack of full scientific certainty should not be grounds for postponing such measures, but 'policies and measures to deal with climate change should be cost-effective so as to ensure global benefits at the lowest possible cost'. One view is that CCS, with its high costs of implementation, would not be seen as a cost-effective method for dealing with climate change. CCS can also be seen as enabling a 'business as usual' approach for the generation of greenhouse gases, by providing a method for retaining them in geological formations, and that may be viewed as at odds with the fundamental aims of the Convention.
Proposed and recent developments
Many of the proposed developments with regard to the advancement of CCS technologies within the UNFCCC are discussed in the Kyoto Protocol section.
D. Bodansky, 'The United Nations Framework Climate Change Convention: A Commentary' (1993) 18 Yale Journal of International Law 451-558 (an article-by-article commentary).