ABSTRACT

Sporting colourful covers with imaginative graphics, the obligatory reports of the Parties to the Convention resemble more the exteriors of popular science paperbacks than the dull manuals of older international environmental agreements, documents that have usually sat forgotten in small UN secretariats. The Framework Convention requires countries to report estimates of all the anthropogenic greenhouse gases that they release, or that they remove through growing trees. This definition excludes non-anthropogenic sources such as CH4 flux from the ocean and from wetlands. Anthropogenic sources of CO2 include energy combustion and some industrial processes, the most important of the latter being cement production. Technical support and information exchange may be considered vital components of any international environmental regime. The disclosure of technical information compiled in an approved and systematic fashion capable of being reviewed for accuracy by another party is known as transparency.