Abstract

The Kyoto Protocol makes provisions in its article 3.3, 3.4, 6 and 12 for the Annex I countries to take into account land-use, land-use change and forestry (sinks) activities in order to accomplish partly their CO2 targets during the "commitment period" 2008-2012. This study focuses on whether the European countries intend to use of the sink option. If so, summarises the percentage of the overall CO2 emission reduction, considering specific rules for sinks under the Protocol which were defined in Bonn and Marrakesh in 2001. the contribution of sinks is considerable for some countries. The percentages of this contribution range from 1% to 4% of the base-year emissions, with an average of around 2% for all the countries. However, uncertainty in these estimates still remains an important factor. Therefore, sinks are not a number one priority and countries intend to delay taking final decisions on the issue in order to have as reliable data as possible. This might happen when the new improved guidelines on reporting on land-use, land-use change and forestry related activities are produced in 2003.