Yes. Parties have agreed to establish a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, starting on 1 January 2013 and ending on 31 December 2017 or 31 December 2020. As a mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol, JI will continue through that second commitment period.

  Emission targets for this commitment period are currently being negotiated under the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP).

It should be noted that, under JI, the issuance of an ERU involves the conversion of an existing unit - either an assigned amount unit (AAU) or a removal unit (RMU) - issued by the Annex I Party hosting the project. With respect to the second commitment period, an Annex I Party may not issue AAUs until its emission target for that commitment period enters into force, or issue RMUs until the accounting rules for land-use, land-use change, and forestry applicable to the second commitment period are fully in place.

  ERUs may be used by Annex I Parties for compliance with their emission targets for the first commitment period as long as they are valid for the first commitment period. In practice this means (in respect of ERUs issued into a national registry that were verified in accordance with the verification procedure under the Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee - Track 2) that they must be issued for emission reductions or removals taking place up to the end of 2012. In this context, the verification of emission reductions or removals may mean that the corresponding ERUs are actually issued after 1 January 2013. However, the serial numbers of these Track 2 ERUs will indicate that they were issued for reductions or removals that took place during the first commitment period.

  The Kyoto Protocol allows ERUs from a commitment period, as with other types of units, to be traded into or out of a Party's national registry until the end of the 'true-up period' associated with that commitment period. This true-up period is formally defined as extending to 100 days after the date agreed by the Parties for completing the reviews of Annex I Parties' emission inventories for the 2012 calendar year. On this basis, the true-up period associated with the first commitment period is expected to extend until mid-2015. ERUs issued in respect of the first commitment period may not be traded after this date unless they are first 'carried over' to the second commitment period.

Most non-government buyers and sellers of ERUs will, however, fall under the rules for domestic or regional emissions trading systems, such as the EU emissions trading system, which may impose other deadlines for using ERUs issued in respect of the first commitment period. These market participants are likely to need to confirm the deadlines for surrendering ERUs against entity-level targets and/or exchanging ERUs from the first commitment period for units issued by such trading systems, as applicable, under the rules of such systems.

  Annex I Parties may decide to 'carry over' ERUs from the first commitment period for use in complying with their emission targets for the second commitment period. Such carry-over transactions, as initiated by national registries, result in the serial numbers of the ERUs being updated.

Each Annex I Party is limited in the number of ERUs that it may carry over from the first commitment period. This limit is set at 2.5% of the Party's original allocation of assigned amount for the first commitment period. Each Party may determine which ERUs in its national registry are to be carried over. It is not possible to carry over ERUs that have been converted from RMUs.