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Kyoto Protocol |
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Kyoto protocol is an international agreement that aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and the presence of greenhouse gases. Countries that ratify the Kyoto Protocol are assigned maximum carbon emission levels and can participate in carbon credit trading. Emitting more than the assigned limit will result in a penalty for the violating country in the form of a lower emission limit in the following period.
The Kyoto Protocol separates countries into two groups. Annex I includes developed nations, while Non-Annex I refers to developing countries. Emission limitations are only placed on Annex I countries. Non-Annex I nations participate by investing in projects that lower emissions in their own countries. For these projects, they earn carbon credits. These credits can be traded or sold to Annex I countries, which allow them a higher level of maximum carbon emissions for that period.
The Kyoto Protocol treaty was negotiated in December 1997 at the city of Kyoto, Japan and came into force February 16th, 2005.
This treaty is intended to implement the objectives and principles agreed in the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The core idea is that stabilizing the atmosphere (the UNFCCC's "ultimate objective") will require governments to agree to quantified limits on their greenhouse gas emissions, through sequential rounds of negotiations for successive 'commitment periods.'
"The Kyoto Protocol is a legally binding agreement under which industrialized countries will reduce their collective emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2% compared to the year 1990 (but note that, compared to the emissions levels that would be expected by 2010 without the Protocol, this target represents a 29% cut). The goal is to lower overall emissions from six greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, HFCs, and PFCs - calculated as an average over the five-year period of 2008-12. National targets range from 8% reductions for the European Union and some others to 7% for the US, 6% for Japan, 0% for Russia, and permitted increases of 8% for Australia and 10% for Iceland." |
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| Objectives | | The objective of the Kyoto climate-change conference was to establish a legally binding international agreement, whereby, all the participating nations commit themselves to tackling the issue of global warming and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The target agreed upon at the summit was an average reduction of 5.20n 1990 levels by the year 2012.
The objective is the "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”.
In simpler language it can be said that Kyoto is intended to cut global emissions of greenhouse gases.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed to a set of a "common but differentiated responsibilities." The parties agreed that:
1. The largest share of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases originated in developed countries.
2. Per capita emissions in developing countries are still relatively low
3. The share of global emissions originating in developing countries will grow to meet social and development needs.
In other words, China, India, and other developing countries were not included in any numerical limitation of the Kyoto Protocol because they weren't main contributors to the greenhouse gas emissions during the pre-treaty industrialization period. However, even without commitment to reduce according to the Kyoto target, developing countries share the common responsibility of all countries to reduce emissions.
The protocol defines a mechanism of "compliance", which means a "monitoring compliance with the commitments and penalties for non-compliance." | | | India and kyoto | | India signed and ratified the Protocol in August, 2002. Since India is exempted from the framework of the treaty, it is expected to gain from the protocol in terms of transfer of technology and related foreign investments. At the G8 meeting in June 2005, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pointed out that the per-capita emission rates of the developing countries are a tiny fraction of those in the developed world. Following the principle of common but differentiated responsibility, India maintains that the major responsibility of curbing emission rests with the developed countries, which have accumulated emissions over a long period of time. However, the U.S. and other Western nations assert that India, along with China, will account for most of the emissions in the coming decades, owing to their rapid industrialization and economic growth( can be deduced from the table below).
Country Change in greenhouse gas emissions (1992-2007)
India +103%
China +150%
Worldwide Total +38% | | | Opposition to kyoto | | Some public policy experts who are sceptical of human-caused global warming see Kyoto as a scheme to either slow the growth of the world's industrial democracies or to transfer wealth to the third world in what these experts claim is a global socialism initiative. Others argue the protocol does not go far enough to curb greenhouse emissions.
Some environmental economists have been critical of the Kyoto Protocol. Many see the costs of the Kyoto Protocol as outweighing the benefits, some believing the standards which Kyoto sets to be too optimistic, others seeing a highly inequitable and inefficient agreement which would do little to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Further, there is controversy surrounding the use of 1990 as a base year as well as not using per capita emissions as a basis. Countries had different achievements in energy efficiency in 1990. For example, the former Soviet Union and eastern European countries did little to tackle the problem and their energy efficiency was at its worst level in 1990, the year just before their communist regimes fell. On the other hand, Japan, as a big importer of natural resources, had to improve its efficiency after the 1973 oil crisis and its emissions level in 1990 was better than most developed countries. However, such efforts were set aside, and the inactivity of the former Soviet Union was overlooked and could even generate big income due to the emission trade. There is an argument that the use of per capita emissions as a basis in the following Kyoto-type treaties can reduce the sense of inequality among developed and developing countries alike, as it can reveal inactivities and responsibilities among countries. | | | Revisions in kyoto | | The protocol left several issues open to be decided later by the sixth Conference of Parties (COP). COP6 attempted to resolve these issues at its meeting in the Hague in late 2000, but was unable to reach an agreement due to disputes between the European Union on the one hand (which favoured a tougher agreement) and the United States, Canada, Japan and Australia on the other (which wanted the agreement to be less demanding and more flexible).
In 2001, a continuation of the previous meeting (COP6bis) was held in Bonn where the required decisions were adopted. After some concessions, the supporters of the protocol (led by the European Union) managed to get Japan and Russia in as well by allowing more use of carbon dioxide sinks.
COP7 was held from 29 October 2001 through 9 November 2001 in Marrakech to establish the final details of the protocol.
The first Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (MOP1) was held in Montreal from 28 November to 9 December 2005, along with the 11th conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP11).
The 3 December 2007, Australia ratified the protocol during the first day of the COP13 in Bali.
Of the signatories, 36 developed C.G. countries (plus the EU as a party in the European Union)agreed to a 10% emissions increase for Iceland; but, since the EU's member states each have individual obligations, much larger increases (up to 27%) are allowed for some of the less developed EU countries . Reduction limitations expire in 2013. | | | Was kyoto a success? what happens when the kyoto protocol expires in 2012; the problems and possible solutions : | | ¬In 2005, the Kyoto Protocol went into effect. It was signed in 1997, but until industrialized nations accounting for more than half of the world's greenhouse gases ratified the treaty, it was a lame duck agreement. When Russia ratified Kyoto in 2005, it became a legally binding document.
Since then, one legally bound country after another has reported that they will not be meeting their commitments. The most recent one is Canada, which had promised to reduce its emission to 6 percent below 1990 levels. Austria, Ireland and Spain are also likely to fall short of their goals. Add to that the fact that the United States, the world's largest polluter, never ratified the agreement; and that two of the developing countries exempt from making reductions are China and India, two of the largest emitters behind the United States. We're left with a very big question: Was Kyoto doomed to fail?
Just like any agreement of this magnitude, the chances of success hinge on a lot of different factors. First, there's the endless red tape of global negotiations. We can look to current attempts to replace the Kyoto Protocol to understand how difficult it is to maneuver the world into any agreement at all. In 2006, thousands of delegates met in Kenya at the United Nations climate talk, where the hope was that they would set out a framework for achieving a post-Kyoto agreement. That didn't happen to anyone's satisfaction. A year later, the world's nations sent representatives to Bali, where success was declared when delegates negotiated their way to an agreement to start negotiating at a future date. In the meantime, the United States was simultaneously lobbying to have emissions caps removed from the post-Kyoto negotiations and hosting its own climate-change summit that produced a heartfelt and completely nonbinding declaration that the G-8 countries along with China, India and Brazil will set emissions-reduction goals in the future. Finally, in 2008, just three years after the Kyoto Protocol went into effect, negotiations began in Thailand to replace it.
Those negotiations reveal some other prime reasons why Kyoto has been unsuccessful so far. One big issue is the refusal of the United States to ratify the agreement. But the problem has as much to do with the relationship between the United States and its trade partners as with the failure of the world's biggest polluter to be involved at all. For one thing, the biggest U.S. trade competitor, China, isn't bound to any reductions. The United States took a stand that this would put an unfair burden on its economy since China would have the upper hand in producing goods without pollution restrictions. Later, Canada, which does the majority of its trading with the United States, declared it would not be meeting its commitment. This is probably at least partly due to its trade status with a country that is not bound to reduce emissions.
But another issue affecting Canada and other countries' ability to meet their commitments is time. Kyoto took effect in 2005 with the intent of meeting emissions goals between 2008 and 2012. It may seem that seven years is plenty of time, but in economic, political and industrial terms, it may be cutting it close. The only countries that are meeting their goals, including Britain and Germany, had started working on energy-saving infrastructure changes years before the Protocol became legally binding.
For a post-Kyoto treaty to succeed, developing polluters like India, China and Brazil would have to play a major part. The Brazilian Amazon is being deforested rapidly by loggers, ranchers, farmers and developers. Same is the case with India and China which are also suffering from the adverse effects of development and industrialization.
Many experts believe that cutting 2008 e¬mission levels in half by 2050, hopefully keeping any temperature increase to less than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), will avoid the severe damage predicted to occur if emissions keep increasing And achieving this reduction won't be easy.
A post-2012 climate-change agreement would have to address factors that have stood in the way of the success of the Kyoto Protocol. Two of the major changes on the table are a shift in focus from mitigation to adaptation and the establishment of a global carbon-exchange market.
More than ever, the world's economies are now so much dependent on each other. One hope with a post-Kyoto agreement is that the world might use this to its environmental advantage, essentially making it economically beneficial for the entire globe to work together toward mitigating climate change. One approach to that is a global carbon market. Many countries, including the United States and Britain, already have carbon trading markets, where companies can trade carbon credits. This basically means that a company that meets or exceeds its pollution-reduction goals can sell "carbon credits" to another company that isn't meeting its goals. The idea is to bring emissions down on average by turning "green" practices into moneymakers. With the significant rise of international trade, creating a worldwide carbon market could be an effective way to make reducing emissions a financial player on a global scale.
Another big issue is the failure of the Kyoto Protocol to fully address issues of adaptation for developing countries. Kyoto focused mostly on mitigation of current pollution levels, as opposed to changes that would bring the majority of the world into a more Earth-friendly economic stance. For wealthy countries, adaptation is a viable (if expensive) move. But for poorer countries like South Africa or even India, a shift in production methods may not be realistic. In the Kyoto Protocol, a fund was set up whereby a small percentage of the money spent by a developed country on a clean-energy project in a developing country goes into an adaptation fund. This fund is used for adaptation efforts in poor countries. Nine billion dollars has been collected so far under Kyoto; the World Bank estimates that it would take up to $40 billion to really make a difference in developing countries .To collect this much money, the new agreement will have to make adaptation a prime focus.
Finally, some developing countries that were exempt from commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, like China, India and Brazil, will have to be included in a new agreement based on their polluting levels. China and India are industrializing at a rate that would cancel out other countries' reductions. Highly polluting developing countries will have to make commitments under the new agreement if it is to make a real dent in global emissions. And the new agreement will have to make it economically beneficial for them.
At the 2007 summit in Washington, D.C., China, India and Brazil did agree to make commitments under a post-Kyoto treaty. With China and India participating, along with a U.S. political shift to a Democrat-controlled Congress and presidential branch, it becomes far more likely that the United States will ratify a new agreement.
The timing of that new agreement is crucial. When negotiations began in Thailand in March 2008, delegates agreed to reach a new treaty by the end of 2009. It's unclear at this point whether that's a realistic time frame. Some think 2010 is more likely. The hope is that an early agreement will give countries and companies enough time to prepare for the change, and therefore make success more likely the second time around. | | | Successor of kyoto !! | | In the non-binding 'Washington Declaration' agreed on 16 February 2007, Heads of governments from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom, the United States, Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa agreed in principle on the outline of a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. They envisage a global cap-and-trade system that would apply to both industrialized nations and developing countries, and hoped that this would be in place by 2009.
On 7 June 2007, leaders at the 33rd G8 summit agreed that the G8 nations would 'aim to at least halve global CO2 emissions by 2050'. The details enabling this to be achieved would be negotiated by environment ministers within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in a process that would also include the major emerging economies.
A round of climate change talks under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (Vienna Climate Change Talks 2007) concluded in 31 August 2007 with agreement on key elements for an effective international response to climate change.
A key feature of the talks was a United Nations report that showed how energy efficiency could yield significant cuts in emissions at low cost.
The talks are meant to set the stage for a major international meeting to be held in Nusa Dua, Bali, which started on 3 December 2007.
The 2008 Conference was held in December 2008 in Poznań, Poland. One of the main topics on this meeting was the discussion of a possible implementation of avoided deforestation also known as Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) into the future Kyoto Protocol.
UN negotiations are now gathering pace in advance of a key meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009.
This time issue is why negotiations for a post-2012 agreement began in 2008. The hope is that giving countries more than ample time to make adjustments will increase chances of success.
¬Post-Kyoto talks are focusing on other issues also intended to solve problems in the initial treaty. The biggest points shed light on just how complicated it is to move economies into more carbon-neutral positions. | |
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