The potential contribution of sinks to meeting Kyoto Protocol commitments

The Kyoto Protocol to the climate convention makes provision for sink enhancement activities to contribute to meeting the greenhouse gas emissions limitation commitments of industrialised countries. This paper analyses the potential contribution of sink enhancement activities to meeting commitments of industrialised countries. Six scenarios covering different categories of eligible sinks are analysed. A range of the potential magnitude of the carbon sequestered by each category of sinks is tested. Since cost curves for the different types of sink enhancement activities are not available for most countries, a range of average costs is used with the lowest cost allowing maximum use of sinks. The effects considered are the impacts on compliance costs for OECD countries, economies in transition, and developing countries and the mix of actions used by industrialised countries to achieve compliance. In every scenario, at least some of the sinks have costs lower than the market price, so the larger the eligible sinks, the lower the compliance costs for industrialised countries. Greater use of sinks also reduces the net income received by the economies in transition and developing countries. Increased use of sinks lowers emission reductions implemented in industrialised countries and reduces non-sink activity under the Clean Development Mechanism.