Elements of Change 1995: Session IIVictor

The full package of international commitments to slow global warming will include resource transfers, technology sharing, and reporting requirements. But the debate to day has turned primarily on one aspect of climate commitments: the design of quantified numerical targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions by specific dates. Many participants in the climate negotiations, especially the states pushing hardest for more stringent commitments as well as the majority of environmental pressure groups, favor codifying targets and timetables in a legally-binding protocol to the Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Victor's message is that the choices in designing a target are numerous; the legal status of a target is only one element of a package of design characteristics. Choosing a legally -binding target has mostly negative consequences for other characteristics that make targets effective, such as their specificity and stringency. More attention should be given to non-binding measures that are more flexible, stringent and creative. Binding and non-binding measures can work in harmony in ways suggested here, but negotiations surrounding the Climate Convention have tended to focus excessively on binding emission targets. Following that path will lead to a less effective Climate Convention.

Victor addresses three questions. 1) What are the purposes of targets? 2) What are the choices that must be made when designing a target? And 3) how does the construction of a useful system for reviewing national performance and compliance interact with the negotiation of targets? Throughout, "target" is defined as a commitment to implement specific policies or meet specific objectives. In the case of the Climate Convention, virtually all discussion has focused on quantified greenhouse gas emission targets, but some alternatives will be discussed.

The answers to these three questions have immediate significance. In late 1995 a working group of Parties to the Climate Convention will start the formal negotiations on the "Berlin Mandate" to negotiate additional climate commitments, including emission targets. Their goal is to have a text ready for adoption in 1997. Victor's thoughts suggest some specific advice for that effort.

The choices in designing a target are numerous. More attention should be given to non-binding measures that are more flexible, stringent and creative.

Targets serve six purposes; in practice, any target can serve one or more (or all) of them. Here they are described in order of the difficulty of reaching a target to serve each purpose. This order may also describe a general progression of targets over time within an issue-area, from targets that are easy to reach to those that are more difficult.

It matters less what standard is adopted and more that some standard exists.

The difficulty of agreeing on targets increases as we move down the list because targets have a greater constraint on national freedom of action. For the same reasons, the need for a target to be legally binding also increases as we move down the list. Perhaps only the last two or three uses of targets actually require that targets be legally binding and thus perhaps more difficult for states to flout. The target currently in the Climate Convention falls into the symbolic and perhaps also the toteboard category. Few of the industrialized countries, for whom the current debates over new climate commitments apply, have yet to show an interest in pursuing truly interdependent commitments (and even less so a fixed cap on emissions). The infra structure is not in place to support review and enforcement of interdependent commitments. Nor is there emerging agreement on how to signal the long term direction of the climate regime. Thus the final two or three purposes of targets are not politically viable pursuits today if a target is to be agreeable to more than a small handful of industrialized countries (perhaps only Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands and Germany). Given these political and institutional constraints, there will be little gained by pursuing a legally-binding target. Even if a target that merited being binding were viable, the negotiations needed to produce an interdependent set of targets would take longer than just a few years.

It might still be argued that targets intended to serve only the first three purposes would be more effective if they were legally binding. Even modest targets have some element of interdependence; the line between where a target must be binding to have effect is fuzzy. Governments might shirk even modest climate targets if they are not held ac countable under international law. All else equal, governments tend to take legally binding measures more seriously than non-binding measures. These statements may be true, but all else is not equal.

The design of targets rests on six choices of which only one is its legal status. Victor re views the other five and then turns to the sixth -- the extent to which the target is legally binding -- and shows how it affects the other five. All of the choices affect all the others, and a full description of the design choices would show all the interactions. The focus is on legal status because a central issue facing the climate negotiators is whether to seek climate targets in the form of a legally-binding protocol.

The main message is that opting for a binding instrument has (mostly negative) consequences for the other choices. In the course of presenting that message Victor illustrates some ways that non-binding targets interact with binding measures. These illustrations -- drawn from the European acid rain and North Sea experiences -- suggest some strategies for the climate negotiations. One route involves binding targets ( e. g., through a protocol, perhaps in 1997) simultaneously coupled with clever and ambitious non-binding initiatives by a smaller group of countries. A binding protocol could reflect what countries are more or less willing to do already (and thus be fairly easy to negotiate); the non-binding measure could be led by a smaller group of countries eager to show that they are and will do more. That is the acid rain model. An alternative, following the North Sea experience, is to seek a broad but ambitious non-binding target first, which is later codified into more binding measures.

Much of the policy debate over targets has focused on the stringency of control measures. This is a difficult issue to analyze because the costs and benefits of slowing global warming are uncertain, as is their distribution. The experience in other international environmental agreements is mixed: nearly all start with modest commitments (including targets); dynamic agreements change those commitments over time, typically making them more stringent, as the Parties learn about the problem and political interests shift in favor of environmental protection and ways around blocking interests are found. The Climate Convention's current target is no exception: although difficult to interpret, the changes of behavior that it requires are modest. Nearly every OECD country is implementing some climate-related policies that it would not have implemented if the Climate Convention had not been negotiated; nearly all those countries are implementing policies that are not costly or actually save the society money (so-called "no-regrets" policies). The exceptions include countries that are implementing carbon taxes, but upon close inspection of those taxes it becomes clear that they are written to give substantial relief to industries that are vulnerable to trade pressures (because their competitors in other countries are not similarly taxed). The style of policy making is not yet one where countries implement costly measures on the expectation that others will also implement costly measures and the trading field remains level. The international commitments are not yet interdependent.

Nearly every OECD country is implementing some climate-related policies that it would not have implemented if the Climate Convention had not been negotiated; nearly all those countries are implementing policies that are not costly or actually save the society money.

It is probably easier to implement and monitor specific international commitments than those that are vague. Assuming that states try to satisfy their commitments at minimum cost, vague commitments make less ambitious efforts easier to justify. All else equal, more specific targets give clearer direction, greater capacity to identify (and respond to) noncompliance, and thus are more effective (except when the target addresses the "wrong" activities). In practice, the specificity of a target is often (but not fully) a measure of the extent to which a target is quantified.

Generally agreements intended to ban substances -- such as trade in highly endangered species or consumption of CFCs or trade in hazardous waste -- can be highly specific because the exact interests of nations and their negotiators are clear. The same is true where the obligations are not ambitious, such as the case of the specific 30% commitment to reduce SO_x emissions under the 1985 LRTAP sulfur protocol. Where implementation is more difficult and uncertain, commitments tend to be written in less specific terms. The protocol to control tropospheric ozone in Europe states several alternative means of defining the targets so that ozone control is more flexible and it is easier to comply with the legally binding agreement; the protocol controlling NO_x emissions allows countries the flexibility to choose the baseline year. The target in the Climate Convention offers flexibility both by not specifying how to convert multiple gases into common units as well as embedding the (vaguely worded) commitments with phrases such as "...taking into account the difference in these Parties' starting points and approaches, economic structures and resource bases, [and] the need to maintain strong and sustainable economic growth... (Article 2.a)".

Targets that require changes in behavior impose costs, but to date there has been little practical attention to the ways that those costs are distributed. Typically targets in pollution regimes are expressed as emission targets. Typically those emission targets are de signed to apply across-the-board (normally in the form of uniform percentage emission cuts). In practice this implies unequal costs as countries almost always start emission abatement from different positions. This seems to reflect four factors that weigh heavily in negotiations: 1) the (erroneously) perceived fairness of across-the-board emission controls; 2) the ease of negotiating simple targets; 3) the dominance of conventional wisdom which quickly focuses debate on this style of percentage cut; and, 4) perhaps the tendency for simple targets based on percentage changes from the status quo to keep politically powerful interests (i. e. the status quo ) more or less in place and uniformly affected, and thus not as strongly opposed to the agreement. Yet most observers who think hard about the logic of uniform cuts would agree that more complex attention to cost distribution could allow more effective environmental bargains.

There are some partial exceptions to the rule of uniform emission cuts. The Montreal Protocol includes two tiers of targets -- one for industrialized countries and the same target with a ten year delay for most developing countries. But the target is uniform within each of those two groups of countries, and thus the main observation that uniform tar gets may be inefficient still applies. The recent (1994) sulfur protocol in Europe contains differentiated national emission targets, calculated with computer models mostly on the basis of "critical loads" of acid rain. This case illustrates a general observation: if pollution regimes are to move from the simple rule of uniform emission targets to more sophisticated schemes for burden-sharing, there must be some formula or tool for establishing individual shares that are perceived as "fair" and that are allocated on a sufficiently simple basis.

In the case of climate change, there are many candidates for such a formula or tool, but none is emerging as a commonly agreed standard. Consequently, conventional wisdom prevails, and most discussion centers on some form of uniform percentage cuts for industrialized countries. Differentiation of emission cuts could make economic and political sense: nations are at different starting points, and thus differentiation of cuts might allow fairer burden-sharing and larger collective cuts. Yet there seems to be strong opposition to differentiation.

If pollution regimes are to move from the simple rule of uniform emission targets to more sophisticated schemes for burden -sharing, there must be some formula or tool for establishing individual shares that are perceived as "fair" and that are allocated on a sufficiently simple basis.

Who implements a target influences the overall effectiveness of a regime. Who participates in negotiating targets obviously also affects the stringency of the target and the sharing of burdens. In principle, the development of every collective agreement re quires a strategic balancing of these two choices: widespread participation might em brace wider behavior within the net of the agreement's commitments, but open participation might dilute otherwise stringent commitments and sophisticated burden sharing that could be agreed to by a smaller group of active participants. The choice between openness and discrimination is not a simple inverse: countries initially left outside the agreement are often affected by the rules that they did not influence, especially if outsiders later formally join the regime. Countries that participate in making the rules might nonetheless not implement them.

In practice, discrimination is not as widely practiced as would be suggested by the importance of this strategic choice. Environmental agreements tend to allow universal participation, perhaps because they are pursued under United Nations mandates and the UN system favors universal participation (or full regional participation in the case of the UN regional commissions). Environmental agreements are often pursued by states as symbolic efforts to mollify political pressure that put the issue on the agenda, and thus targets may tend to be modest; that also favors wide participation since the costs of joining such agreements are low and the benefits high. The Climate Convention today is also marked by widespread participation; the modest emission control targets strictly apply only to the OECD countries (except Mexico, which joined OECD only last year, and Turkey, which does not intend to implement the climate commitments). Arguably those commitments would have been stronger if a smaller group (excluding the U. S. and perhaps others) had pushed for further commitments, either in the Convention itself or through a separate declaration.

The choice of which behavior or substance to control is very complicated. Victor's discussion touches on the major issues, giving special attention to two: what types of pollution and resource depletion tend to be addressed (and why); and under what conditions are "implementation gaps" likely to arise between the agreed international targets and the types of domestic policies actually needed to control polluting behaviors and substances.

Agreements designed to manage a resource or control pollution typically contain targets expressed in terms that conform to the common-sense notion of what causes the problem at hand. Targets in resource agreements are expressed in terms of allowable extraction of the resource such as fish harvest; tar gets in pollution agreements are typically expressed as emission of the pollutants. This approach often makes sense because it leaves participants to implement whatever policies they see fit to meet their share of the resource extraction or pollution contribution; it also makes sense because common-sense targets serve the symbolic need that many agreements provide. While it may matter whether or not the environmental problem is ad dressed, it also matters that members of the agreement can point to specific targets and other commitments in the agreement that conform with the common-sense notion of what behaviors and substances cause the pollution problem. Without such a common -sense connection, the agreement appears complicated and not directly addressing the problem at hand.

There are many exceptions to the above general statement. Especially in resource regimes the terms of agreements may be written to contain both general targets on the rate and distribution of resource extraction as well as additional targets on specific behaviors and practices that directly affect the extraction of the resource. Fisheries agreements, for ex ample, are often based on a notion of the proper level of fish catch but in practice limit the catch through limitations on length of season, fishing areas, types of gear such as nets and lines, and net mesh size. For decades the whale catch was regulated with a single quota expressed in Blue Whale Units (BWUs) calculated with an exchange rate that converts catches of different-sized species of whales into a single number. That system was abandoned in favor of some species-specific targets and regional limits as it became clear that the aggregate measure of resource extraction could not adequately protect against over-harvesting of species such as the Blue and Right whales whose commercial viability and even extinction was threatened.

That resource regimes often have targets that control a complicated mix of substances and behaviors may reflect two factors. First, they are typically older than pollution control regimes and thus have had more time for learning and adjustment. It took at least a decade for participants in the whaling agreement to converge on the observation that a new management scheme was needed to replace the BWU system. Second, regimes are typically initiated and managed by those who are affected by degradation of the resource. In the case of resource regimes, those are typically people, firms and states who harvest the resource; they have intimate knowledge of the changes in behavior that are feasible and needed to manage the degradation and thus the agreements they initiate and manage are more closely written to match what is needed to manage the resource. Still, resource regimes are notoriously ineffective at really managing the resource, in part because they have not focused enough on enforcement and in part because quotas are often set too high in order to get all parties to agree.

Widespread participation might embrace wider behavior within the net of the agreement's commitments, but open participation might dilute otherwise stringent commitments and sophisticated burden sharing that could be agreed to by a smaller group of active participants.

In contrast, pollution regimes are typically initiated by those who are victims of degradation but may know little about exactly what changes are needed and feasible to implement. Those regimes susceptible to emission targets that have high symbolic value but not necessarily or directly connected to the policies and other measures that actually change behavior. Managing the resource is in the long term interest of affected industries; limiting pollution and other externalities typically is not. Resource regimes affect a particular industry. Pollution regimes often affect many industries; building coalitions to develop and implement pollution control policies across industries is more difficult. The major success stories in control of international air pollution externalities phase-out of CFCs in industrialized countries and massive reduction of SO_x emissions in the European industrialized countries -- were all achievements of single industries operating under special conditions that allowed the industry to retain its profit-making services. There have been some losers and opponents, but generally low opposition by polluters makes it easier for regimes to be implemented and effective. All else equal, pollution regimes may be tougher to make effective be cause they require that victims successfully put the issue on the agenda but that the users of the resource either find it in their interest or be coerced to implement the needed changes in behavior; resource regimes require only that the users be involved, and typically it is in their (long term) interest to manage the resource.

Agreements to control pollution, including pollution by greenhouse gases, may often face a gap between the international commitments, typically expressed in terms of emissions targets, and the actual implementation of those commitments as specific policies and other measures that change behavior and solve the problem. The design choice of what behavior or substance should be controlled is typically decided in the international agreement to be an emission target. But usually that leaves open a train of related and more important design choices of how to meet that target. This "implementation gap" may be most severe under two conditions:

The main beneficiaries are firms that don't yet exist or have not identified themselves as potential winners, and thus are not lobbying in favor of the policy change. Losers are typically found in the status quo and are usually aware of what they stand to lose; they lobby hard against policy changes.

In principle there is a wide range of choices about the behavior or substances that might be controlled with a target. In practice, pollution control regimes tend to focus on emission targets, leaving a gap between the agreed target and the specific policies and measures that are needed to meet the tar get. In principle that gap is a source of beneficial flexibility in meeting targets; in practice, it is typically unclear whether a country's implementation is on track to meet the aggregate target. Staying on track is politically and economically most difficult when the tar get applies to substances emitted throughout the economy and where the needed changes are difficult to design and implement because of opposing political interests and cost. A review mechanism can help determine whether parties are on track (and whether specific targets are actually reached). If the parties are to make commitments that are interdependent -- that is, where it matters whether or not one party complies while its trading partners do not -- then the ability to test whether or not a party is on track to comply is crucial. The roles of review mechanisms on that topic are discussed in the next section.

The target in the Climate Convention is framed in terms of emissions of a basket of all greenhouse gases (other than those greenhouse gases that are controlled by the Montreal Protocol). The means of converting the different greenhouse gases into common units is not specified and will be difficult in practice. How to convert that aggregate basket target into actual emissions control and to close the implementation gap is the central issue facing nations as they put the Convention into practice and contemplate what types of further commitments they might be able to put into practice.

Some observers argue that because there is no international enforcement body, international law is not important. States and individuals follow international law only when it suits them. Yet there is ample evidence that the status of international agreements under international law does matter. Policymakers face choices about the legal status of agreements (including targets) that they negotiate. Commitments that are binding under inter national law may be implemented more fully, especially in states that have a style of taking international legal commitments seriously and/or have domestic legal practices that give direct effect to norms that are binding under international law.

But the choice to pursue a legally binding target has consequences for all the other de sign choices considered above. In particular:

1 ambition: Efforts to control acid rain in Europe illustrate the difference in ambition created by legally-binding commitments. Both the 1985 SO_x and 1987 NO_x protocols were legally binding and contained modest targets, but in both cases a small group of countries made non-binding declarations to control their emissions further (60% instead of 30% cut for SO_x; 30% cut instead of a freeze for NO_x ). Because the declarations were non-binding the parties that signed them were willing to adopt more ambitious targets. In turn, they have made serious efforts to implement those new targets, despite the fact that they are non-binding. The advantages are at least double: not only is emission control greater, but it is greater in the lead countries ( i. e., the ones that tend to join ambitious additional targets) that define the overall pace of what emission controls are possible and needed. A similar experience is found in efforts to control pollution in the North Sea. After a decade of mostly ineffective efforts through legally binding control measures a Ministerial process set ambitious non-binding targets in the mid-1980s (50% cut in most pollutants; 70% cut in dioxin and some heavy metals); those have since been translated from broad non-binding targets into legally-binding obligations.

The climate negotiations have so far suggested some parallels with the acid rain experience. Roughly a year before the legally binding loose target in the Climate Convention was adopted, 22 of 24 OECD countries unilaterally announced their own ambitious national or regional targets for controlling greenhouse gases (primarily CO₂). Those targets are non-binding, and most won't be met; but most countries are also making some additional efforts to control their greenhouse gas emissions by reference to those targets. Essentially all of those targets are more stringent than the loose target in the Climate Convention. One conclusion of the present analysis is that there is more to be done with such non-binding targets, especially if targets are considered more carefully and by groups of countries rather than only as part of unilateral negotiating tactics to force the international community to adopt a target in the Convention (which was the reason for most of the unilateral climate targets announced during the negotiation of the Climate Convention). To date the only multi-country target is the European Union's target to stabilize emissions at 1990 levels by 2000, but that has come unglued because of an internal squabble over burden sharing. Such targets can be influential, but they need to be connected to what countries are actually able and prepared to implement.

Because the declarations were non-binding the parties that signed them were willing to adopt more ambitious targets. In turn, they have made serious efforts to implement those new targets, despite the fact that they are non-binding.

2 specificity: The specificity of targets is closely related to their ambition and to their legal status. Specific targets offer little room to wiggle and are easier to enforce, but those features that make specific targets effective are weakened if the commitments are also ambitious and legally binding. This triangle of design choices does not leave us with any clear answers, but the experience with the power of the non-binding targets in the acid rain and North Sea pollution control regimes illustrates how relaxing the legal status can lead to substantial benefits in terms of greater ambition and specificity. All of the non-binding targets adopted in the acid rain and North Sea regimes mentioned above were more specific and ambitious than their binding counterparts; the only exception was the SO_x non-binding target, which was equally as specific as the binding SO_x target (though more ambitious).

3 burden-sharing: It is unclear how other design choices affect the ways that burden-sharing schemes are negotiated and codified. However, one line of argument is suggestive. Non-binding agreements permit states to agree to targets that have higher risks of non-compliance; consequently, they may also be willing to seek new (trial) schemes for burden sharing. Given the paucity of such schemes in practice, and the potential benefits of adopting such alternatives, approaches to setting targets that make such innovation easier should be strongly welcomed.

Targets can be influential, but they need to be connected to what countries are actually able and prepared to implement.

4 participation: The legal status of an agreement interacts with participation in two ways. First, because legally-binding agreements are typically pursued under the auspices of some host (often the United Nations), it is difficult to discriminate in the formal agreement and procedures that are agreed. Yet limited participation can narrow the field just to countries that are leaders willing to go further than the less-ambitious universal agreement (e. g., as shown in the SO_x and NO_x cases mentioned above) or to identify just the important countries among whom a deal must be struck. The ability to identify and include only those few essential participants makes it more likely that they will reach more effective agreements, especially agreements that require ambitious moves beyond the status quo to include tougher commitments, innovative burden-sharing, etc. Non-binding agreements allow the flexibility to shape participation more actively. Especially when there is a legally binding agreement to serve as the universal symbol of action (e. g., as the Climate Convention now does even with its modest target, or as the SO_x and NO_x protocols did with their modest binding targets), a non-binding agreement can move further when a smaller group of (lead) states participates in making the agreement. This is perhaps the strongest reason why a legally binding protocol might still be needed to set a climate target for the period after 2000. If so, negotiators should not worry that such a protocol is modest (or even largely ineffective); what matters most is that a small group of countries, willing to go further with more sophisticated patterns of participation and burden-sharing, convenes and agrees on a stronger course of action.

Second, binding agreements are likely to be accompanied by lower participation if they are also ambitious and specific. States won't sign agreements that they won't implement, especially states that take international law seriously. In practice, few negotiators seem willing to pay the price of lower participation, which may explain why so many international environmental targets are modest or vague or both. Conventional wisdom that favors binding international law and widespread participation automatically leads to targets that reflect the lowest common denominator.

5 behavior/substance: There is no direct relationship between the legal status of targets and the specific types of behaviors or substances they control. The tendency of pollution agreements to focus on emissions reflects the conventional wisdom that dictates how targets are framed. That wisdom is not all bad although in the case of climate it leaves a significant gap between the agreed measures (emission targets) and the actual policies and measures needed to change behavior and lower emissions. It could be much easier to negotiate, implement, and monitor a package of measures such as energy efficiency standards, population control, or other factors that contribute to emissions if the agreements sought are flexible and perhaps non-binding; nations might pick and choose which they want provided that the national sum total of effort met some emission or cost target. The point is simply that measures which go beyond emission targets could be a lot more effective in controlling climate (and at keeping the cost lower) than simple emission targets schemes. Non-binding measures offer more promise for such experiment and learning.

In sum, the design of a target is a package of interlocking choices. Here it is emphasized that the choice of a binding target has (mostly negative) consequences for other desired features of the package. The tradeoff is most direct between the legal status, ambition and specificity of the target. All else equal, non-binding targets are probably systematically more ambitious and specific than binding ones. Non-binding targets may also favor more effective patterns of participation and burden-sharing: a small group of active states operating under the flexibility of non-binding measures will likely find it easier to agree to badly needed innovations in burden-sharing. The choices should not be viewed as singular. Indeed, the examples cited here show that non-binding targets can interact with binding law. The SO_x and NO_x cases are examples of non-binding targets adopted by a small group of lead countries at the same time that more modest binding targets were agreed by a larger number of states. The North Sea pollution case is an example of a non-binding target that led the way with ambition and was later codified into a series of binding targets and related commitments. In all the cases, non-binding measures have been an essential part of the overall effectiveness of the targets by offering a means for lead countries to set ambitious goals.

In addition to the tradeoffs in the design of targets, Victor argues that there is also a tradeoff between negotiating ambitious, legally-binding targets and the operation of an effective mechanism for national reporting and review (Nature 373:280-282, 1995). In brief, the negotiation of tough climate tar gets is incompatible with building a reporting and review mechanism because the negotiation process gives incentives, already in evidence, to undermine the completeness and transparency of national reports. During the one to two cycles of national reports and re views (three to six years) needed to build the foundation, that endeavor should be given much higher priority than targets and timetables. The point is that the commitments (including targets) in a treaty are part of a system that includes mechanisms for gathering and reviewing data on implementation, adjusting commitments over time, and dealing with problems of non-compliance. Observers who focus only on the "need" for more tough and legally-binding targets are considering only one part of the system. International environmental governance has almost completely neglected the reporting and review aspects that make the overall system effective.

The full argument and evidence won't be repeated here except to note that most countries are implementing their current climate commitments through low-cost and "no regrets" options. This is entirely reasonable at the early stages of addressing the climate problem, but it also underscores that the climate commitments are not yet beyond the symbolic and "toteboard" stages discussed earlier. Yet serious efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions require more collaborative efforts -- namely, commitments that are truly interdependent.

Conventional wisdom that favors binding international law and widespread participation automatically leads to targets that reflect the lowest common denominator. ... All else equal, non-binding targets are probably systematically more ambitious and specific than binding ones.

As discussed earlier, if targets are used as part of interdependent collaboration between trading partners then it is probably important that the targets be legally binding (although there is still room for adoption of even more ambitious targets by lead countries through non-binding measures). Even more important is that there be some mechanism for determining whether countries are on track to meet their commitments. That is the purpose of a review mechanism and the system of national reports that is the backbone of international review. If those systems don't operate properly -- and they don't in the case of essentially all international environmental agreements -- then there is little hope for sustaining interdependent cooperation by building confidence that greenhouse commitments are being implemented. Nor is there much hope that future negotiation and adjustment of climate commitments will be in formed by accurate, shared and legitimate information about what countries can implement and which policies work. The critical time for building those systems is now be cause the initial data comprise a baseline against which the efficacy of policies and long term trends can be determined.

Today, the situation looks good for data on emissions inventories, in part because compiling those inventories is a relatively easy task and in part because the OECD/IPCC system of standards for inventories has helped harmonize the different national reports. But the data on policies and measures that nations are implementing, as well as emission fore casts, are less promising. There is no complete set of standards for these data, nor is one soon to be issued. The current set of national reports ("communications") that have been submitted over the last year illustrate the weakness: it is virtually impossible to compare the efficacy of different national proposals and even more difficult to compare across nations or to verify which nations are legitimately on track for compliance. A handful of the reports are rich in information although none is completely transparent in the assumptions that underlie critical calculations on the efficacy of policy measures and forecasted emissions.

The critical time for building reporting and review systems is now because the initial data comprise a baseline against which the efficacy of policies and long term trends can be determined.

Victor suggests that a central goal of environmental pressure groups and lead states, namely a legally binding target for emission of greenhouse gases, is at odds with other important features of climate targets, such as their specificity and ambition. Most of the purposes actually served by targets do not strictly require a legally binding target; truly interdependent targets would, but neither the Climate Convention process nor nearly any other international environmental agreement has yet evolved to that stage. Victor also argues that targets are part of a system for negotiating and managing international agreements. Pushing for more (especially legally binding) targets in the short term undermines other parts of the system, especially the building of effective reporting and review mechanisms which are crucial to the long -term effectiveness of the climate regime.

Legally binding targets have a role to play in the suite of climate commitments, but non-binding targets may have an even larger role. At minimum, they deserve more attention. The acid rain cases suggest that binding targets are a modest backstop and that substantial additional commitments can come in the form of non-binding targets negotiated alongside binding commitments. The North Sea pollution cases suggest that bold progress can take the form of ambitious non-binding targets, followed by more detailed specific efforts to codify commitments into binding measures. Both cases suggest that non-binding measures deserve more central attention in the climate negotiations. Indeed, it might be better for the working group aiming for a 1997 protocol to spend less time finding universal ground for a legally binding protocol and more time allowing smaller groups of states to innovate more stringent and precise targets and new systems for burden-sharing, all of which could provide a larger contribution to the effectiveness of the climate treaty system. Nearly all that very productive activity is better served by negotiations that seek non-binding measures.