The sharing of information by governments is central to how the Climate Change Convention works. This information about national greenhouse gas emissions, international cooperation, and national activities is reviewed periodically so that the Parties can track the Convention's effectiveness and draw lessons for future national and global action. National communications describe what a Party is doing to implement the Convention. This information should be collected using agreed methodologies to ensure that national data are consistent and comparable and can be incorporated into global data sets.
Developed countries provide additional details on their efforts to limit emissions.
They must also give projections through the year 2000 of how their policies will affect emissions and sinks. Their first submissions were due no later than six months after they became a Party. The initial communications have been single documents, normally with annexes and a brief executive summary. The second submissions are due by 15 April 1997. The national communications are subjected to a regular review process.