Editorial note

Negotiations under the auspices of the 1985 Sulphur Protocol resulted in the conclusion of the 1994 Oslo Protocol on Further Reduction of Sulphur Emissions, which entered into force on 5 August 1998. Like its predecessor, the 1994 Protocol contemplates future negotiations on further obligations to reduce sulphur emissions. The 1994 Protocol applies and develops the concepts of ‘critical loads’ and the ‘effects-based approach’ introduced in the 1988 NOx Protocol. The basic obligation to which the Parties commit is to ‘control and reduce their sulphur emissions in order to protect human health and the environment from adverse effects, in particular acidifying effects, and to ensure, as far as possible, without entailing excessive costs, that depositions of oxidised sulphur compounds in the long term do not exceed critical loads for sulphur given, in annex I, as critical sulphur depositions, in accordance with present scientific knowledge’ (Article 2(1)).

As a first step, parties are required to meet the targets and timetable for reductions of sulphur emissions specified in Annex II (Article 2(2) and (3)). The Protocol requires the parties to make use of the ‘most effective measures for the reduction of sulphur emissions’ from new and existing sources, including controlling the sulphur content of fuel, energy efficient measures, promotion of renewable energy and the application of best available control technologies using the guidance provided in Annex IV of the Protocol (Article 2(4)).