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Proposal to Create a new ISO/TC 207 Subcommittee on Climate Change [5/20/2007]

TC 207's two Working Groups that developed international standards on Greenhouse Gas Emissions (ISO 14064 and 14065) - Working Group 5 on Climate Change and Working Group 6 on Greenhouse Gas Validation and Verification Bodies - are proposing to merge and establish an umbrella subcommittee responsible for the maintenance of these standards, and perhaps also the development of other climate change-related standards. TC 207 will decide whether to create such a Subcommittee on Climate Change at its Beijing plenary meeting.

Draft International Standard for GHG validation and verification bodies released [3/7/2006]

The Draft International Standard version of ISO 14065: Greenhouse gases - requirements for greenhouse gas validation and verification bodies for use in accreditation or other forms of recognition, was published on January 9, 2006 for a five-month ballot. Interested organizations can download the standard at INNI's Draft International Standards page, and are encouraged to submit comments to your respective national standards bodies or the INNI Secretariat before June 9, 2006.

Greenhouse Gas Accounting Standards Being Finalized [10/17/05]

The ISO Working Group on Climate Change (WG5) met in Sydney in July 2005 to discuss and incorporate member country comments on its three-part Draft International Standard (DIS) on greenhouse gas accounting. While there, WG5 also decided to elevate and circulate the revised draft as a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) on which all the member countries will be asked to either approve or reject verbatim. Some from industry, however, have found the changes made to the DIS in Sydney unsatisfactory. The International Chamber of Commerce, immediately prior to the TC 207 Madrid meeting, submitted a statement to the committee that among other things asked it to reconsider WG5's decision to elevate the greenhouse gas accounting standard to FDIS. At its plenary meeting, TC 207 nevertheless affirmed the decision taken by WG5. A two-month ballot period will start in October 2005, and if approved, the final standard is scheduled for publication in early 2006.

TC 207's Working Group 6, which has been developing the requirements for greenhouse gas validation and verification bodies also met at the TC 207 Madrid meeting, and incorporated the comments received on the Draft International Standard, "ISO 14065: Greenhouse gases - Requirements for greenhouse gas validation and verification bodies for use in accreditation or other forms of recognition." The revised draft was then elevated to Final Draft International Standard. The development of this new standard has been on a fast track, in order to catch up with the scheduled completion of the ISO 14064 GHG accounting standard. Approval of the FDIS is all but certain, and the final standard is expected to be published mid 2006.

Draft International Standards on Greenhouse Gas Accounting Approved [7/21/05]

In June 2005, ISO's ballot on its three-part Draft International Standard (DIS) on Greenhouse Gas accounting, ISO 14064, was approved overwhelmingly, with Australia casting the only negative vote out of 60 countries. Despite the broad member country support, some in the business community maintain reservations about certain aspects of the draft standard. Comments submitted by International Chamber of Commerce, for example, express concerns about a provision requiring organizations to include indirect emissions in their greenhouse gas reporting. The ICC is also critical of a procedural decision taken by ISO's Working Group on Climate Change to advance all three parts of the draft standard simultaneously, rather than elevate two of the more polished parts of the standard at this time, while holding the part on greenhouse gas reduction projects back for further work.

The Working Group, at its next meetings in Sydney in late July and Madrid in mid-September 2005, will discuss member country comments submitted during the voting period. However, considering the very high approval rate and the relatively late stage in the standard's development (only one more step before final publication), it is unlikely that the present drafts will undergo substantial change. The group will now start preparing a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS), which member countries will vote to either approve or reject verbatim. If approved, the final standard is scheduled for publication in early 2006.

Draft of New ISO Standard for GHG Validation and Verification Bodies Released [7/21/05]

In May 2005, ISO released the first draft of a new standard that sets out requirements for bodies that provide validation or verification assessments of greenhouse gas emissions. The new standard, "ISO 14065: Greenhouse gases - Requirements for greenhouse gas validation and verification bodies for use in accreditation or other forms of recognition," is a joint effort of ISO TC 207's Working Group on Climate Change and ISO's Committee on Conformity Assessment (CASCO). The joint working group was created in August 2004 and has made very rapid progress on developing the new standard since then. Unless unanticipated issues arise during the comment period, this document will very likely be elevated to the Draft International Standard stage by a resolution of TC 207 at its next meeting in September 2005. The proposed target date for the standard's publication is the end of 2006.

ISO Releases Draft International Standards on Greenhouse Gas Accounting [3/25/05]

ISO's Working Group on climate change has released for comment and balloting its three-part Draft International Standard (DIS), ISO 14064 - Greenhouse Gas Quantification, Monitoring, and Reporting. The deadline for comments (and votes from ISO member countries) is June 27, 2005.

ISO's Working Group on environmental communications has also released a DIS version of its standard, ISO 14063 - Environmental Communications - Guidelines and Examples for comment and balloting, with a deadline for comments (and votes by ISO member countries) of May 17, 2005.

The DIS or "enquiry" stage is the first time at which a draft ISO standard undergoes a review and ballot by the entire ISO membership, not just the member countries participating in Technical Committee producing it. Interested organizations can download the standards for the purpose of review at INNI's Draft International Standard page, and are encouraged to submit comments to their respective national standards bodies or the INNI Secretariat before the respective deadlines noted above. ISO/TC 207's Working Group on climate change and will meet in mid-September in Madrid to discuss and incorporate the comments received and to prepare Final Draft International Standards for ballot. The Working Group hopes to publish their final ISO standards in early 2006.

ISO's Greenhouse Gas Accounting Standards Moving Forward [11/23/04]

News Update:
ISO TC 207 Working Group (WG) 5 on Climate Change held its 6th meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina in early September 2004. The group reviewed the comments on the second Committee Drafts (CDs) of ISO 14064, the three-part Greenhouse Gas Quantification, Monitoring, and Reporting standard, which had been distributed months during the summer. Over 80 participants from 34 member bodies and 7 liaison organizations participated in the five-day meeting. Significant progress was made on all three parts of the standard, and TC 207 resolved at its closing plenary to elevate the documents to Draft International Standards (DIS). A DIS is the stage at which the three-part standard undergoes its first review and ballot by the entire ISO membership. Draft DIS documents based on the work completed at the BA meeting will be submitted to the ISO Secretariat by the end of November. It is expected that the three DISs will be distributed to member bodies for approval and comment in January 2005. Another WG 5 meeting will be held to discuss the comments and prepare the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) by August 2005. The group plans to publish the final standard in early 2006.

Titles for each of the standard's three parts were modified in BA. The revised titles are as follows:

ISO 14064 Greenhouse gases
Part 1: Specification with guidance for the quantification and reporting of emissions and removals from organizations.
Part 2: Specifications with guidance for the quantification, monitoring and reporting of emission reductions and removal enhancements from projects.
Part 3: Specifications with guidance for the validation and verification of assertions.

Analysis:
NGOs expressed generally positive reactions about the progress made during the Buenos Aires meeting. Many in the NGO community expect that implementation of the proposed standard will encourage increased investment in activities that lead to emissions reductions or removal enhancements during the next decade. The proposed DIS clarifies a number of issues and will help to ensure that corporate inventories and project-based activities meeting the standard actually produce credible environmental benefits.

Nonetheless, some important concerns remain. The Part 1 standard allows companies to self-certify their activities at the entity level (a process sometimes referred to as "first party verification"). In addition, companies following the Part 1 standard may take credit for what are referred to in the standard as "directed actions". Directed actions are "specific activities or initiatives, not organized as a GHG project as defined in Part 2 of ISO 14064, [that are] implemented by an organization to reduce or prevent direct or indirect GHG emissions or increase GHG removals." These actions may occur within or outside the boundaries of the organization. The results of such actions can be reported in the context of the organization's corporate GHG inventory but, unlike projects reported under Part 2 of the standard, need not be monitored or measured by any independent, outside agent. A number of NGOs expressed concerns that this provision might become a loophole for unscrupulous companies wishing to claim ISO certification for actions that do not, in fact, generate measurable environmental benefits.

In the context of the Part 2 standard, important concerns were raised concerning the treatment of projects designed for GHG capture and geological storage as well as projects designed to enhance biological sequestration of carbon. These are relatively new areas in which there is only limited international agreement on the definitions of basic terms. Efforts were made in BA to introduce consistent definitions across the three parts of the DIS and to make the definitions of terms used in the ISO standard conform to definitions used by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and by the Kyoto Protocol regime. These efforts were neither wholly successful nor complete and additional work will be needed to clarify definitional issues during the process of reviewing the DIS.

NGOs were, in general, satisfied with most of the text on cross-cutting issues that appears in the introduction to the Standard. Some concerns were raised suggesting that important issues related to the treatment of sinks and sequestration were relegated to annexes (thus relegating them to a role as 'guidance' to users of the standard) rather than being kept in the body of the standard itself where they would be viewed as requirements.

One of the unresolved issues coming out of Buenos Aires involves the future relationship between the ISO 14064 standard and the WRI/WBCSD Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Some NGOs who came into BA recognizing that the GHG Protocol had 'cut much of the trail' for the ISO standard had hoped for an explicit recognition of the GHG Protocol in the ISO process. In the event, the WRI/WBCSD GHG Protocol was recognized as an important guidance document that could help to inform those implementing corporate inventories or project-based activities, but it was not given formal recognition as a part of the ISO standard.

Conclusions:
The ISO 140464 standard represents an important step forward in the efforts of NGOs to encourage investment in GHG emissions-reducing and removal-enhancement activities. The review process associated with passage to a DIS allows NGOs one more opportunity to work within their national mirror groups and promote the implementation of a credible international standard for quantification, measurement, and verification of emissions reductions and removal enhancements. Special attention must be paid at this stage to issues related to GHG sequestration, capture, and storage to make certain that these options are handled in a logical manner and in a fashion which is consistent with the work of the IPCC and the UNFCCC. If the proposed ISO standard is accepted by the ISO membership and implemented by companies, it will help to ensure that claims for GHG emissions reductions and removal enhancements represent real, quantified, and verifiable actions with significant benefits for the global environment.

Background:
ISO started to explore the potential of developing climate change-related standards in 1998, and Technical Committee 207 formally stepped into the arena in June 2002, when it established Working Group 5. WG5 was charged with creating a standard for the "measurement, reporting and verification of entity- and project-level greenhouse gas emissions."

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ISO May Develop New Standard for GHG Validation and Verification Bodies

A proposal to begin work on a new standard, "Greenhouse Gases - Specifications for bodies that provide verification or validation assessment" was submitted jointly by ISO's Committee on Conformity Assessment (CASCO) and ISO/TC 207's Working Group 5 on Climate Change.

The purpose of the proposed standard is to provide a set of requirements for bodies that provide validation or verification assessments of greenhouse gas emissions. The standard will follow the CASCO-approved common format for such a document: general requirements, and requirements covering structural characteristics of the bodies concerned, the type of resources they should have available, the internal process and management systems elements they should have in place to ensure they can provide credible assessments that can support verification and validation claims.

If and when approved, the specification document, either in a form of International Standard or Technical Specification, will be developed in a new Working Group 6 within TC 207. The ballot for the proposal was circulated in April 2004. The result of the vote and decision on whether to develop such a standard will be announced in August 2004. The proposed target date for the standard's publication is the end of 2006.

Analysis

The major impetus to create this green house gas verification standard arose from ISO's current development of GHG emission accounting and reporting standards that in turn will require further specifications for validation and verification bodies. However, the proposal argues that the new standard would also be used for accreditation of verification/validation bodies for existing GHG emission accounting schemes, such as World Business Council on Sustainable Development/World Resources Institute GHG Protocol and the UNFCC Clean Development Mechanism. ISO acknowledges that there exist already several documents that establish requirements for verification and validation bodies, but points out that they are all scheme specific, and that there is no universally applicable accreditation requirement at this time. If ISO decides to go ahead with development of this new standard, its success will depend on how the new Working Group incorporates and deals with the existing requirements already developed or under development within other GHG accounting programs.

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ISO/TC 207 Working Group 5 March 2004 London Meeting Report [3/26/204]

Prepared by Irving Mintzer, Pacific Institute

On March 8-12, 2004 ISO TC 207 Working Group 5 (WG5) met in London to review comments on the first full "Committee Draft" of ISO 14064, the Greenhouse Gas Quantification, Monitoring, and Reporting Standard. The meeting brought together about 50 experts, representing 30 national delegations and a small number of observers from the organizations including WRI, WBCSD, and the World Bank's Prototype Carbon Fund. Despite five days of intensive dialogue, the working group was unable to resolve completely the differences among various country positions. A decision was taken in London to send out a revised draft of the proposed standard that incorporates the results of the March meeting. This draft will be circulated for comments by each of the national mirror groups and brought to a second review meeting in Toronto in late April.

Analysis

Alignment with WRI/WBCSD GHG Protocol
One of the general concerns raised during this meeting was the relationship between the new ISO standards and the WRI-WBCSD GHG Protocol. During the last five years, WRI and WBCSD have been working with a number of international corporations and other stakeholders to develop a greenhouse gas reporting/accounting protocol. Since their corporate accounting protocol was completed in 2001 and has already been tested and used by multiple corporations, the need for the better alignment of the new ISO standard with the Protocol has always been the issue throughout the development of the ISO standard. Many members of ISO WG5, however, are resistant to adopting the WRI-WBCSD GHG Protocol maintaining that it was (a) developed for a different purpose than was the ISO standard, (b) developed by a small self-selected group of mainly industrial country companies, and (c) is not what ISO refers to as "regime neutral." In the course of the London meeting there was general agreement that the WRI-WBCSD GHG Protocol would be an important input to the ISO standard (i.e., what ISO refers to as a 'seed document') but that it could not be taken up en bloc and adopted by ISO as the standard.

Purpose of the standard -guidance or control?
Another issue raised at this meeting was whether the purpose of the proposed standard is primarily to guide corporations and project developers in their efforts to quantify, monitor, and report GHG emissions reductions or whether its purpose is to police the actions of these organizations in order to limit fraudulent claims that are based on non-existent emissions reductions. These two approaches reflect a difference in basic assumptions among the groups. Some believe that most companies choosing to utilize the ISO standard are potential 'cheaters,' driven by the profit-motive to overstate their accomplishments for private gain. Others suggest that these companies are more likely pro-active early adopters who need procedural guidance in order to ensure that future claims of emissions reductions will be credible, transparent, and verifiable.

Rigor/requirements of the standards
There were disagreement and conflicts concerning the level of rigor needed for the reporting elements in the standard. Several representatives of major corporations argued strongly to make the standard as loose and undemanding as possible, with few or no binding requirements placed on companies. Others argued that a credible standard requires compliance with a clear and rigorous procedure but should not be so burdensome that the transaction costs of project implementation discourage investment in GHG-reducing or sink enhancing activities. This group argued for the use of reasonable care in crafting the standard but for avoiding the temptation to penalize project developers, assuming that they were all liars and cheats, until proven otherwise.

These conflicts played out in various debates throughout the week. One repeated set of discussions focused on whether the standard ought to demand specific actions (i.e., incorporating the word "shall" in each section of requirements) or whether it should encourage specific actions (i.e., incorporating instead the word "should" in regard to its requirements). A selective, case-by-case approach can be the solution for this issue. If a specific action was necessary to ensure the credibility of the claimed emissions reductions, than the appropriate wording was "shall." If the action would only expand the amount of detail provided to outside reviewers, than the appropriate word was "should."

The same dynamic played out in a smaller way in debates concerning whether, for example, a project developer should "explain how and why" he or she chose a particular method of quantification or instead the developer needed to "justify" the choice of a particular method. In this context, use of the word "justify" was intended to mean that the project developer bears a responsibility to explain not only how and why he or she chose the selected method, but also to explain why he or she did not choose each of the other available alternate methods, and to demonstrate to all external reviewers that the selected method was clearly the "best" method for quantifying the identified emissions. It is important for the project developer to choose a method that is credible and is consistent with the principles of completeness, transparency, accuracy, and relevance on which the standard is based. In addition, the project developer needs to make an argument for his or her choice to the satisfaction of a third-party verifier. However, extensive use of the word "justify" would place an unfair burden of proof on the project developer, and that the required actions could significantly increase the transaction costs associated with project monitoring and verification.

The ISO 14064 standard is divided into three sections: the first section focuses on the construction of corporate-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories that cover a specific time period (e.g., 2003-2004). This component is called Part 1, and is sometimes referred to within ISO as the "entity standard." Part 2, referred to as the "project standard," lays out the requirements for achieving ISO certification for a project designed to reduce GHG emissions. The third section is concerned with the procedural requirements for verifying either a corporate inventory or the emissions reduction claims of a project developer.

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Committee Draft of ISO's Greenhouse Gas Standard Circulated to Member Countries for Review [11/24/03]

On November 7, 2003, the first Committee Draft (CD) of ISO's greenhouse gas (GHG) standard (Parts 1-3) was circulated to TC 207 member countries for review, comment, and formal approval. After the Bali meeting in June 2003, where Part I and III of the standard were elevated to CD, members of Working Group 5 met twice in the latter half of 2003 to bring Part II, the project level GHG accounting portion of the standard, to a CD level. The group decided to accelerate Part II's development by four months, by skipping another revision process on a Working Draft that was proposed in the Bali meeting. Comments from TC 207 member countries are due to the WG5 Secretary by early February 2003 and WG5 will discuss and incorporate the comments at its next meeting in March 8-12, 2003 in London.

Analysis
Part I - Organizational
A major unresolved issue for this part of the standard is whether accounting and reporting of indirect emissions, particularly those associated with the generation of purchased electricity by the reporting organization will be required or optional. Reporting of indirect emissions from purchased electricity, also known as Scope 2, is required in many voluntary greenhouse gas programs including, the World Economic Forum Global GHG Registry, the EPA Climate Leaders Program, and the California Climate Action Registry. If Scope 2 is only optional in ISO's standard, this would mark a notable divergence from existing best practice.

Whether Scope 2 reporting will ultimately be a "should" or a "shall" provision in the final standard may largely hinge upon how the term "indirect emission" is defined. A narrower definition would make it a more feasible and acceptable requirement to which organizations must adhere. For example, under the WRI/WBCSD Greenhouse Gas Protocol, a narrow definition of Scope 2 is used (i.e., only emissions related to generation of purchased electricity for which public emissions factors are readily available in most countries). Other smaller and harder to quantify indirect emissions effects of electricity use, such as those related to transmission and distribution losses, and emissions upstream of the electricity generator can optionally be reported in Scope 3 of the WRI/WBCSD protocol). If ISO, however, defines the term emissions from purchased electricity more broadly and includes the full fuel life cycle emissions, including transmission and distribution losses, then such a provision would likely force a voluntary decision by ISO drafters because of the practical constraints associated with obtaining the necessary information in most parts of the world.

Part II - Project
An ongoing concern is that the primary purpose of this part of the ISO 16064 standard remains unclear, and as a result, its value in the market is questionable. For instance, it is unclear how or where the standard will address the concept of additionality (a criterion for demonstrating that the reduction is "additional" to what would have occurred in the absence of the project). In the present draft, additionality is included as a project requirement, although whether it will become an explicit and universal requirement in the final standard remains uncertain. There is a chance that additionality could get re-written as a "scheme-specific" concept, in which case it would get moved to the standard's annex, which would present a problem because according to ISO rules annexes are considered informative (voluntary), not normative (required).

If the standard is to be used to calculate offsets or generate credits under the Kyoto Protocol or any other trading mechanism then the concept of additionality is essential for credibility, and thus should be a fundamental requirement in the standard. Although difficult to operationalize in practice (as witnessed by the CDM's initial rejection of 14 out of 16 proposed CDM projects), additionality is a necessary evil, since it ensures the integrity of the caps imposed by the Kyoto Protocol. Each certified emission (or sequestration) reduction unit or credit from a project allows an Annex 1 country to emit one additional unit above their target level. If the project was going to happen anyway (i.e., non-additional), global emissions would be higher by the number of reduction units issued to the project than it would have been without the project.

Some people have the misconception that additionality only matters for Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects, but it is an important and relevant issue irrespective of the program or scheme as long as the intention is to use the project as an offset. Because the precise purpose of Part II of ISO 14064 has never been clearly articulated, the possibility of a mismatch between the standard's final requirements and its application in the market is a concern.

>More generally, there also a growing concern by some outside of ISO that development of such a "project" standard is premature due to the lack of agreement (and experience) on such fundamental issues such as how to address additionality, establish baselines and take into account leakage and other negative secondary effects associated with projects. Those skeptics suggest that development of the standard should be postponed until more experience is gained carrying out greenhouse gas reduction-related projects in the field. To this end WRI and WBCSD are currently road testing a draft project quantification standard with over 40 organizations in 10 countries, while also seeking feedback from other key stakeholders. Perhaps ISO should give some serious thought to waiting for the results of this work before setting their untested standard in cement.

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First Working Drafts Completed for ISO 14064 Greenhouse Gases Standard [8/5/03]

Prior to its 4th meeting in Bali in July 2003, the first Working Drafts (WDs) for two sections of the three-part standard for greenhouse gas (GHG) quantification, reporting and verification, ISO 14064-1 and ISO 14064-3, were circulated in May 2003 for comment by WG5 members. The first section of the standard on the entity level accounting (ISO 14064-1) currently consists of nine clauses and four annexes:

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WG5 Bali Meeting Decisions and Next Steps [8/5/03]

During the TC 207 Bali meeting in July, all the comments on WDs for Parts 1 and 2 were discussed. Most of the issues raised in the entity accounting section (Part 1) were resolved during the meeting. For this section, all 55 pages of compiled comments were reviewed and addressed with the exception of Clause 9 - Verification. The discussion on how to coordinate and align the verification section in Part 1, intended for 1st party verification, and Part 3, which specifies 3rd party verification, continues at this moment. Major modifications and additions to Part 1 include:

Timeline for the standard is set as follows:
- WG5 is going to prepare CDs for Part 1 and Part 3 by September 26, 2003. The CDs will be distributed for comment from October 1 to December 31. The comments will then be compiled and distributed by February 6, 2004.
-For Part 2, the first WD will be prepared by September 26, 2003 and distributed from October 1 to October 31, 2003 for comment. The comments will be compiled and distributed by November 7, 2003. There will be a separate Part 2 meeting in December for the preparation of the second WD by January 31, 2004.
-The comments on all of the three parts of the document will be reviewed by WG5 at its March 8-12, 2004 meeting in London. The CDs will then be circulated to the full ISO membership for comment and voting. The final standard is scheduled for publication in June 2005.

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NGO Position Paper Being Developed [8/5/03]

On July 17, Ecologia, an NGO working closely on the ISO greenhouse gas accounting standard, released a draft NGO position paper on the standard. (http://www.ecologia.org/ems/ghg/) The paper explains the importance of the ISO GHG accounting work and identifies potential requirements related to the process of the development of the standard and the principles to which the standard must adhere if it is to promote GHG emissions reductions. Ecologia has also developed a more specific issue paper looking at the "entity" (i.e., corporate or organizational) part of the standard and a detailed update on and evaluation of the entity part. In the coming weeks they will be posting corresponding updates on the project and verification sections, as well as a report on participation and transparency in WG5's process thus far. For more information, please contact Heather McGray, Program Director at Ecologia, at hmcgray @ ecologia.org

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General Structure of ISO 14064 Determined [4/29/03]

ISO 14064-2: Project Quantification
o Principles (core, unique)
o Quantification (Emissions and Removals)
o Reporting
o Validation/Verification (1st Party)

ISO 14064-3: Validation and Verification
o Principles (core, unique)
o Validation Requirements for Projects
o Verification Requirements for Entities and Projects
o Auditor Competencies
o Guidelines

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Alignment with WBCSD/WRI GHG Protocol [4/29/03]

At the Malaysia meeting, WG5 considered the relationship of ISO 14064 to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol prepared by the World Business Council on Sustainable Development and World Resources Institute (WBCSD/WRI). At the opening plenary, Kevin Boehmer, WG5 Secretary, reported constructive discussions with WBCSD/WRI leadership about the potential for a mutually agreed division of roles between the ISO process and that of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. (The impetus for the discussions was a somewhat unfavorable written submission by WBCSD/WRI on the draft documents that came out of WG5's Berlin meeting.) After some deliberations by WG5 experts in Malaysia, a decision was taken to pursue a more conscious alignment with the WBCSD/WRI-led initiative. WG5 decided that the new ISO documents on entities and projects should follow a similar organizational structure, so that the WBCSD/WRI documents could better serve users as "how to" guidance for meeting the ISO standard's requirements.

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Regime Neutral Standard [4/29/03]

The principle that the ISO 14064 standard be "regime neutral" continues to be reaffirmed by WG5, despite the recognition that the Kyoto Protocol is likely to remain the primary driver for most users. Some within WG5, nonetheless, deem reaffirmation of the principle important, particularly because significant greenhouse gas management activity is taking place in countries, such as the United States and Australia that for the time being remain outside the Kyoto regime.

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Linkage Between Quantification and Verification [4/29/03]

In Malaysia, WG5 experts explored the relationship between quantification and verification. They decided ISO 14064-3, which will provide operating procedures for validation and verification, should be applicable broadly to the field of verification of greenhouse gases, and not just be limited to verification standardized in ISO 14064-1 and 14064-2. It was also understood that ISO's Committee on Conformity Assessment (CASCO) was the proper place to develop any document relating to the accreditation of verifiers. The experts also decided that 14064-1 and 14064-2 should contain some requirements for first party validation and verification, whereas the requirements in 14064-3 will focus on the process of independent validation and verification.

The experts discussed the relationship of the ISO standard, particularly the part on projects, to the provisions of the Kyoto regime. It was widely recognized that the Clean Development Mechanism provides a major impetus for greenhouse gas projects. They agreed that ISO 14064-2 should, therefore, at least be compatible with CDM, if not consciously aligned with it. WG5 tried to distinguish technical issues from political ones, and decided it will attempt, as best as possible, to only standardize technical issues while leaving political ones to the discretion of the CDM Executive Board. Whether, or the degree to which, WG5 is able to do this remains an open question.

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Process for moving forward within WG5 [4/29/03]

Following WG5's Berlin November 2002 meeting, two documents were prepared by ad hoc groups on quantification and entity reporting and on validation and verification. These documents were issued as "pre" working drafts. They were intended to serve both to identify strategic issues for the Malaysia meeting, as well as to help develop a consensus outline of the future content of ISO 14064. It was the decision of the Chair and Secretary of WG5 that WG5's next documents will also be called "working drafts." Editing groups were created at the Malaysia meeting to develop the working draft documents of sections 1-, 2-, and 3. The editing groups are to deliver documents to WG5 by May 9, 2003. Member bodies will have one month for review and comment. Three weeks prior to the next WG5 meeting in Bali in July 2003, the WG5 Secretary will distribute comments received on the working drafts.

A goal for the fourth meeting is to develop first committee drafts of the three parts of the standard. This should include 14064-1 on entity quantification, and possibly 14064-3 on validation and verification, although 14064-2 is not expected to be ready that soon, and that fact may delay 14064-3 if significant uncertainty remains on the topic of validating and verifying projects.

NOTE: This write up was drawn extensively from the report of John Shideler, a U.S. expert to TC207 WG5, who attended the Malaysia meeting, along with Tod Delany, on behalf of the U.S.

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Petroleum Industry Plans to Develop Guidance on GHG Emission Reporting [4/29/03]

Outside of ISO, the petroleum industry, in a March 10 letter by its trade association, International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA), to the leadership of Working Group 5, announced its intention to develop sector-specific guidance on measuring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions. The letter is also noteworthy for IPIECA's indication of its concern regarding the pace of work within WG5. IPIECA's letter adds to the mounting chorus of voices (including many NGOs) calling for ISO to slow down the work on the greenhouse gas standard so as to ensure more thoughtful and inclusive development of the document.

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Background on Climate Change Treaty [10/30/02]

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed at the Earth Summit in June 1992 (UNCED, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). The Convention was ratified and entered into force as an international treaty in March 1995. Article 2 of the Convention outlined objectives of the UNFCCC as (1) to stabilize the concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere at levels that will not threaten dangerous interference in the global climate system and (2) to promote sustainable development in both industrialized and developing countries.

For the short term, the Framework Convention articulated the aims of the Parties to return GHG emission levels to their 1990 levels by 2000 in industrialized countries and to slow the rate of growth in emissions in developing countries. But the Convention did not include any binding commitments to reduce current or future emissions by any of its parties. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international body of over 2000 scientists and other experts, concluded in its Synthesis Panel Report of 1997 that stabilizing future concentrations of greenhouse gases at safe levels would require substantial emissions reductions below then current levels, including reductions on the order of 50 percent or more in carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use in industrialized countries.

The Third Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (December 1997, Kyoto, Japan) agreed on a protocol to the Convention in order to accelerate the international process of achieving the Convention's overall objectives. This agreement, which came to be known as the Kyoto Protocol, included binding commitments by industrialized countries to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases in aggregate by approximately 5.2 percent below their 1990 levels (when calculated as the annual average emissions for the five-year period 2008-2012). Recognizing that it might be expensive for some countries to achieve these emissions reductions solely through adjustments to domestic economic activity, the Kyoto Protocol included three market-based mechanisms that would allow industrialized countries to finance emissions reductions outside their own borders and to earn internationally-recognized credits (or emissions offsets) as a result of these investments. The three mechanisms include a scheme for international trading of emissions allowances among countries with binding emissions reduction targets, and two mechanisms for achieving emissions reductions from project-based activities. The two project-based mechanisms are called "Joint Implementation" (which covers joint venture activities in Central and Eastern Europe as well as in other countries with economies in transition to a market system) and the "Clean Development Mechanism" (or CDM, which covers projects undertaken in developing countries).

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The Need for International Standards on Emissions Reporting [10/30/02]

Under the Kyoto Protocol, countries are required to conduct national-level inventories of GHG emissions by sources and uptake by sinks. These inventories comprise part of the baseline from which national performance is to be measured against the emissions reduction targets specified by the Kyoto Protocol. While the construction of national level inventories is guided by procedures developed by the IPCC, there are currently no internationally accepted standards for measuring and reporting GHG emissions at the organization- or project-level. Consistent, reliable, and effective standards are essential in order to maintain the credibility of the emissions reduction claims that will be made under these project-based mechanisms. Such standards will become critically important under the Kyoto Protocol as industrialized countries (and companies in those countries) begin using the Protocol's project-based mechanisms as part of their efforts to achieve cost-effective emissions reductions in accord with their national obligations.

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ISO Enters International Climate Change Arena [10/30/02]

Some within the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) recognized that international standards could be important to the development of a viable greenhouse gas emissions credit market and could be a key factor in:

· promoting emission reductions;
· increasing consistency, transparency and credibility in GHG accounting;
· enhancing the credibility of the actions taken, especially for the project-based mechanisms.

ISO started to explore the potential of developing such standards in 1998, and Technical Committee 207 (TC 207) formally stepped into the international climate change arena in June 2002. At this time, TC 207 approved a proposal by Malaysia and Canada to begin work on a new standard for measurement and reporting of corporate GHG emissions. To carry out this work, TC 207 established Working Group 5 (WG5), which was charged with creating a new standard for the "measurement, reporting and verification of entity- and project-level greenhouse gas emissions." The standard is intended to help companies integrate greenhouse gas emissions into their environmental management systems. In addition, depending upon how the standard is written, it may also assist companies in complying with national climate change regulations, participating in voluntary reporting initiatives, or entering emerging greenhouse gas emissions trading markets.

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Report from the First Working Group 5 Meeting [10/30/02]

Approximately 70 participants from about 30 countries took part in the first meetings of WG 5, which were led by representatives from Malaysia and Canada. The leadership of WG 5 proposed that the primary model for the new ISO GHG standard be the Greenhouse Gas Protocol developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). For their part, WRI and WBCSD decided that they would not be formal participants in the ISO process, but would provide clarification when and as needed. Additional methodologies under consideration as inputs to the ISO standard include the Global Reporting Initiative Guidelines, the Australia GHG Challenge guidelines, California's Climate Action Registry, and the UK's Emissions Trading Scheme, among others. WG5's first task is to compare and evaluate these various documents.

At its June 2002 meeting, to facilitate its work, WG 5 established four Ad Hoc Groups (AHGs) as follows:

AHGs 1-3 are now assembling seed documents relevant to their areas of GHG measurement, identifying relevant on-going initiatives outside of ISO, and compiling existing "best practice" guidance. AHG4 will facilitate the work of the other AHGs by addressing "cross-cutting subjects" such as general principles, terminology, partnerships and stakeholder engagement. Following a recently adopted TC 207 practice, coordination of each ad hoc group is shared by a developed and developing or transition country. In the case of AHG4, Germany is paired with an international NGO that has 'liaison' status to TC 207.

WG 5 is working on a tight timeline in order to complete its final product by 2005. Whether that product is an international standard or something less rigorous remains to be decided, as does the extent to which ISO's GHG standard is coordinated with the project-based reporting requirements of Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism and other related GHG initiatives.

NOTE: Heather McGray of ECOLOGIA contributed to the writing of this piece.

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Resources and Links

Final report of the ISO/TMB ad hoc group Climate change (2002)

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The Greenhouse Gas Protocol - A Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard (2001)

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