The 1997 Kyoto Protocol to protect the global climate is an incomplete agreement. Many of its provisions require a further specification in order to make the Protocol ratifiable for countries. In this project, concrete options and proposals for the elaboration of the Kyoto Protocol were developed for the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.

After the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the third Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in 1997, far-reaching decisions were pending to elaborate and clarify the Kyoto Protocol. These decisions were scheduled to be taken at the sixth Conference of the Parties in November 2000. However, agreement could possibly only be reached and transformed into concrete legal text in the course of 2001. Interest focused on the so-called Kyoto Mechanisms (Joint Implementation, Clean Development Mechanism, Emissions Trading) and the compliance system. In this crucial phase of international climate policy, the major task of this project was to assess existing negotiating proposals, to elaborate available options and to further develop and present these in the actual negotiation process on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. In this context, special attention had to be devoted in order to ensure compatibility between proposals made and discussed in the different areas under negotiation, in particular those cutting across the Kyoto Mechanisms and the compliance system. These rules were to build upon and complement each other as far as possible. The work done is eventually reflected in the agreements reached at the seventh Conference of the Parties in November 2001, the so-called "Marrakesh Accords".