ECENA and INECE Promote the Use of Benchmarking and Enforcement Indicators by Developing “Guidelines for Benchmarking and Progress Monitoring”
By Mihail Dimovski, Senior Project Manager, ECENA Secretariat

To support inspectorates in ECENA network member countries in using performance measurement tools to improve the effectiveness of their enforcement programs, the Regional Environmental Center (REC), which hosts the Secretariat of the Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Network for Accession (ECENA), developed a set of Guidelines on Progress Monitoring and Benchmarking.

The publication seeks to build a theoretical framework for the need for strong programs on benchmarking and environmental compliance and enforcement indicators. It then presents a methodology for the practical implementation of a benchmarking program and the development of indicators to support benchmarking.

The Guidelines provide a regional overview of progress monitoring and benchmarking practices in Southeastern Europe and describes resources developed by ECENA to support these activities. The regional overview is complemented by international examples of benchmarking, progress monitoring, and indicators to share lessons learned and best practices.

ECENA is hosting a workshop on Benchmarking and Setting Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Indicators on 29-30 March, 2007 in Szentendre, Hungary. The workshop will provide an opportunity for practitioners in the region to share experiences and to work with international experts to develop performance measurement tools and to set program objectives.

The publication was commissioned by the World Bank. Experts from the INECE Secretariat, INECE’s working group on indicators, OECD, the Asian regional enforcement network, and other organizations provided input to its development.

For more information, contact Mihail Dimovski, Senior Project Manager, ECENA Secretariat, at mdimovski@rec.org or the INECE Secretariat at inece@inece.org. Additional information is also available through ECENA's Web site at http://www.rec.org/REC/Programs/rerep/ecena/.

Compliance is Key to Capturing the Climate Benefits of Forests

INECE is currently completing a paper for the World Bank BioCarbon Fund on overcoming obstacles to increased forestry biocarbon projects and recommendations for enhancing compliance with the rules governing such projects. The paper includes a series of practical recommendations for improving compliance in forestry projects, as well as a set of policy changes that would improve the regulatory environment in which such projects must operate. The paper will be posted on the INECE website within a few weeks and will form the basis of future work undertaken by INECE and its partners on building compliance capacity for forestry and climate change.

In 2004, Hurricane Jeanne ripped through the neighboring countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic on the island of Santo Domingo. Although the storm’s intensity was as fierce in both countries, the toll of destruction was quite disparate. In Haiti, which is mainly deforested, approximately 2,700 people lost their lives, while in the still-forested Dominican Republic only 20 people perished. Although many factors contributed to the divergent outcomes in each country, the presence or lack of forests also made a large difference. Forests not only protect people from the destruction wrought by massive storms, but also help to mitigate the climate changes that increase the ferocity of such storms and cause other adverse impacts to human health and the environment.

The world currently stands at a crossroads for forests and climate change. The current path threatens to degrade and destroy the world’s forests and speed the warming of the planet. A 2-3 °C temperature rise, which is on the low end of the predicted range over the next 100 years under the status quo, would, among other things: melt most of the world’s glaciers; reduce crop yields; increase deaths from malnutrition, heat stress, and diseases such as malaria and dengue fever; displace people due to storms, droughts, and other extreme weather events; and cause the extinction of 15-40% of the world’s biodiversity.

The alternative is a climate change mitigation program that dwarfs current efforts. Most scientists now believe that to avoid dangerous interference with the climate, we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60-90% of 1990 levels over the next several decades. Forests must play a central role if we have any hope of meeting these goals, as about one-fifth of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions come from deforestation. The costs of achieving such reductions, if begun now, would be relatively small compared to the consequences of inaction.

Forests not only minimize the impacts of climate change, but can also promote the sustainable development of the poorest regions in the world and dramatically improve the lives of millions of people in the process. Many co-benefits accrue from forestry projects, such as access to clean water, soil conservation, and the increased availability of forest products like honey, medicinal plants, firewood and fruit. These and other benefits provide stability and economic opportunities for impoverished communities, and minimize conflict due to resource shortages.

Large-scale reforestation efforts currently underway in many parts of the world could be expanded dramatically if biocarbon financing is made available to support those efforts. Two recently announced reforestation projects – the Billion Tree Campaign, which has set a goal of planting that many trees worldwide in 2007, and the Green Wall Sahara Programme, which plans to plant 300 million trees to slow the expansion of the Sahara Desert – are examples of large-scale forestry projects that are occurring in the developing world without carbon financing. The scale and number of such projects could be expanded significantly if carbon credits were readily available to governments and private project developers. If carbon money were on the table, such large-scale projects could become the norm, rather than an extraordinary example of environmental stewardship.

Success depends on expanding the tools currently available to promote forestry projects and on incorporating on-the-ground experience in developing new approaches in the future. As explained below, the scientific methodologies for accurately measuring biocarbon already exist and can be applied today, as long as resources and technology are made available in an equitable manner. In addition, many of the laws, regulations, and rules for ensuring the credibility of forestry projects already exist.

What is missing is the local capacity and knowledge in many parts of the world to design and implement forestry projects that comply with these rules. Strong and effective compliance with the rules is essential to expanding the use of forestry projects in mitigating climate change by ensuring the environmental integrity of carbon trades, reducing the risk of emissions increases from other sources, increasing market confidence, and increasing the value of biocarbon credits.

Reality Check: The Nature and Performance of Voluntary Environmental Programs in the United States, Europe, and Japan
Submitted by Resources for the Future, http://www.rff.org.

Since the early 1990s, voluntary programs have played an increasingly prominent role in environmental management in the United States and other industrialized countries. Programs have attempted to address problems ranging from climate change and energy efficiency to more localized air and water pollution problems. But do they work? Despite a growing theoretical literature trying to explain how and why voluntary programs might be effective, there is limited empirical evidence on their success or the situations most conducive to the approaches. Even less is known about their cost-effectiveness.

Getting credible answers to these questions is important. Research to date has been largely limited to individual programs, and protagonists and antagonists to the trend are at ever greater disagreement, sometimes drawing opposite conclusions about the same program.

In Reality Check: The Nature and Performance of Voluntary Environmental Programs in the United States, Europe, and Japan, co-editors Dick Morgenstern and Billy Pizer seek to clarify what is known by looking at a range of program types, including different approaches adopted in different nations. Pizer and Morgenstern are senior fellows at Resources for the Future (RFF), an independent, nonpartisan think tank on energy and environmental issues, based in Washington , DC .

The focus of the book is on assessing actual performance via seven case studies, including the U.S. Climate Wise program, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s 33/50 program on toxic chemicals, the U.K. Climate Change Agreements, and the Keidanren Voluntary Action Plan in Japan .

“The weight of existing research indicates that voluntary programs can have a real effect on behavior, but the extent of that effect appears small – only a few percent – particularly for energy-related programs,” notes Pizer. “Societal goals that demand larger results will require something beyond voluntary programs.”

The central goals of Reality Check are understanding outcomes and the relationship between outcomes and design. Most of the programs it studies have positive results, but they are small compared with business-as-usual trends and the impact of other forces –such as higher energy prices. Importantly, potential gains may be quickly exhausted as the “low-hanging fruit” is picked up by voluntary programs. By including in-depth analyses by experts from the United States , Europe , and Japan , the book advances scholarship and provides practical information for the future design of voluntary programs to stakeholders and policymakers on all sides of the Atlantic and Pacific.

Co-editor Richard D. Morgenstern designed and directed voluntary programs as director of the Office of Policy Analysis and, subsequently, as acting assistant administrator for Policy, Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. EPA. Co-editor William A. Pizer has published in subjects such as the measurement of regulatory costs and was involved in government-wide evaluation of voluntary programs while serving on the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers.

Additional information about the book, including video from the launch seminar and ordering details, can be found at http://www.rff.org/rff/Events/Reality-Check-Book-Launch.cfm

U.S. EPA Releases Paper on the Fundamentals of Successful Monitoring, Reporting and Verification under a Cap and Trade Program
By John Schakenbach, Robert Vollaro, and Reynaldo Forte, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Atmospheric Programs, Washington, DC.

The U.S. EPA has published a paper discussing several elements that they believe were fundamental to the success of two U.S. cap and trade programs – the ARP and the NBTP. These elements may be useful to the design and implementation of other cap and trade programs both within and outside of the United States.

EPA developed and implemented the Acid Rain Program (ARP), and NOx Budget Trading Programs (NBTP) using several fundamental monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) elements: (a) compliance assurance through incentives and automatic penalties; (b) strong quality assurance; (c) collaborative approach with a petition process; (d) standardized electronic reporting; (e) compliance flexibility for low-emitting sources; (f) complete emissions data record required; (g) centralized administration; (h) level playing field; (i) publicly available data; (j) performance-based approach; and (k) reducing conflicts of interest. Each of these elements is discussed in the context of the EPA’s experience under two U.S. cap and trade programs, and their potential application to other cap and trade programs.

The U.S. Office of Management and Budget, found that the Acid Rain Program has accounted for the largest quantified human health benefits of any federal regulatory program implemented in the last 10 years, with annual benefits exceeding costs by more than 40 to 1. The authors believe that the elements described in this paper greatly contributed to this success. EPA has used the ARP fundamental elements as a model for other cap and trade programs, including the NBTP, which went into effect in 2003, and the recently published Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) and Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR). The authors believe that using these fundamental elements to develop and implement the MRV portion of our cap and trade programs has resulted in public confidence in the programs, highly accurate and complete emissions data, and a high compliance rate (over 99 percent overall).

For the text of the full paper, please visit http://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/cap-trade/docs/fundamentals.pdf.

MIELD Unites Experts on International Environmental Law Implementation in Russia
By Dr. Eugene A. Wystorobets, MIELD Founder and Coordinator, measure@mail.ru.

The Moscow Initiative on International Environmental Law Development (MIELD) was established in 1994 to promote cooperation and information sharing in the fields of domestic and international environmental law in Russia, and to ensure that the Russian people’s environmental interests are consciously recognized, supported and followed. Active participants in MIELD include representatives of domestic and foreign state and non-governmental organizations, as well as private citizens.

Global biodiversity conservation and environmental protection require the creation of domestic implementing legislation, inter-departmental and inter-sectoral cooperation, and greater awareness of environmental laws. In response to these challenges, the goals of MIELD are to: (1) meet the demand in Russia for literature on domestic and international environmental law, through the publication, dissemination, and exchange of literature within Russia and with other countries; (2) develop applied environmental and legal resources on the internet, where experts may share ideas; and (3) provide advocacy and assistance on specific issues of domestic and international environmental law to practitioners.

The Environmental Law - Motivations in International Co-operation monograph (ISBN 5-02-033807-9) serves as the Russian foundation for further steps towards domestic implementation of international environmental law. This is the first complete and systemic Russian analysis of international legal relations in the field of environmental protection. The monograph is unparalleled in its usefulness as a reference / course manual to prepare students studying aspects of environmental protection and natural resources, including international relations, international law, political science, regional studies, and ecology. Certain readers may obtain a free copy of the monograph by filling out the form available at http://www.silverday.ru/ecolog.

MIELD also facilitates an online forum, http://www.fido7.net/cgi-bin/forumi.fpl?user=measure, for sharing ideas and contributing articles about international environmental law and its relation to Russian domestic environmental practice. This site has attracted more than 2,000 visitors. We invite you to make contributions to this forum.

Visit http://www.silverday.ru/ecolog for additional information.

New UNEP Publications Released to Further Negotiation and Implementation of Multilateral Environmental Agreements

At the occasion of the 24th Session of the Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum, UNEP launched three new publications which complement UNEP’s series on environmental law.

Compliance Mechanisms under Selected Multilateral Environmental Agreements provides a comparative analysis of compliance mechanisms under such Agreements. Its focus is directed to stakeholders who deal with the legal aspects of the Agreements. The other two new publications, the Glossary of Terms for Negotiators of Multilateral Environmental Agreements and the Guide for Negotiators of Multilateral Environmental Agreements are designed to be used by a broad range of stakeholders.

Later this year, a further publication, Negotiating and Implementing MEAs: A Training Manual for NGOs, will be added as a tool to strengthen the capacity of non-governmental organizations involved in developing and implementing Multilateral Environmental Agreements.

These tools complement UNEP’s ongoing efforts to strengthen the capacity of Governments and a wide range of stakeholders to better implement and enforce Multilateral Environmental Agreements in order to comply with environmental law. To order, please contact UNEP’s official online bookshop at http://www.earthprint.com.