The Kyoto Protocol is the product of ten years of negotiations and comes out of the process that was started by the signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This original framework was agreed upon at the first Earth Summit in 1992. The Kyoto Protocol was agreed in 1997 in Japan. Not only does the Protocol set out committments to reductions but ... the methods by which they can be achieved. Since 1997 most of the negotiations have centred around these methods, defined as the 'Flexible Mechanisms'. These are the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), Joint Implementation (JI) and Emissions Trading (ET).