PRINCIPLES OF JOINT
IMPLEMENTATION MECHANISM IN THE SECOND SULFUR PROTOCOL
This paper examines an
effective way of environmental regulations initiation within international
agreements at the lowest possible cost. The Joint Implementation (JI) mechanism allows for achieving this
policy goal. Such mechanism is introduced in most of air quality international
agreements, but not for the transboundary air pollution convention. The last
protocol of this convention, so called Second Sulfur Protocol (SSP) contained an offer regarding its JI
in order to lower the execution costs to the signatories. On one hand it seems
that acting in this manner should be suitable for all the SSP signatories, as
it lowers their individual execution costs, but on the other hand there are
fears that as a consequence of some JI, the pollution deposition may increase
in a country which is not a part of a given JI. An international group of
experts tried to elaborate a set of necessary principles of JI, which would
assure the fulfillment of the agreed limitations upon emission and encourage
the attainment of critical sulfur levels. The results of this group’s effort
are collected in this paper. It presents all principles of joint implementation
together with some simulations results. The results show that the JI mechanism
can be beneficial not only to the ‘host’ countries, but also to the ‘donor’
countries and it can be helpful in achieving cost effectiveness during the
execution of international agreements. When the additional principles are
followed this mechanism should work soundly and the goal of lowering costs
should be achieved without influencing the established structure of sulfur
dioxide emission reduction commitments.