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Kyoto Protocol
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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).
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The first major problem with the Kyoto Protocol is its obvious favoritism toward certain nations of the world. Although 180 countries originally drafted the Kyoto Protocol, and 178 recently met and agreed to the Kyoto Protocol, ironically, the treaty would not apply to all of them. In fact, this treaty exempts half of the world’s population and nine of the top 20 emitters of CO2, including China and India.[3] China is the second largest emitter of CO2, emitting 668.73 million metric tons in 1999 (11 percent of the total emitted by all nations), and India is fifth with 243.28 million metric tons in 1999 (4 percent of the total emitted by all nations). Even though both these amounts are lower than that of the United States, which emitted 25 percent of the world’s CO2 in 1999 with 1,519.89 million metric tons, their ratio between the CO2 emitted and the nations’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is much less efficient than that of the United States (see Figure 1).[4] India uses three times the energy and emits four times the CO2 per unit of GDP as the U.S. does, while China fares much worse. China uses nearly five times the energy and emits eight times the CO2 per GDP unit as that of the U.S.[5]
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The Kyoto Protocol was concluded without such commitments, and the Clinton Administration indicated that it would not submit the Protocol for Senate consideration until meaningful commitments were made by developing countries. At COP-4 in Buenos Aires, Argentina — host country of the meeting — became the first developing country to indicate that it will make a commitment to take on a binding emissions target for the period 2008-2012. Kazakhstan ... announced its intention to take similar action. At this meeting, the United States announced it would sign the Kyoto Protocol, which it did on November 12, 1998. To date, none of the largest developing countries, such as China, India or Brazil, have shown a willingness to make commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
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The Kyoto Protocol, which wasoriginally draftedin 1997 and subsequently revised to take U.S. concerns into account, sets out concrete targets for industrialized nations to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases by 2012. Under the treaty’s terms, developing countries can continue to increase emissions in order to ensure economic growth, but major industrialized nations must reduce their emissions by an average of 5.2 percent of their 1990 levels. Specific targets include an 8 percent reduction for countries in the European Union, 7 percent for the United States, and 6 percent for Canada and Japan.
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The Kyoto Protocol can ... be evaluated by comparing costs and gains. Several economic analyses were made that show that the Kyoto Protocol is more expensive than the global warming that it avoids. Defenders of the Kyoto Protocol argue however that while the initial greenhouse gas cuts may have little effect, they set the political precedent for bigger (and more effective) cuts in the future. Also, they demonstrate commitment to the precautionary principle. [18] (http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:vcHByDeqePUJ:www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/australia.pdf+sepp+balloon+1958&hl=en&ie=UTF-8)
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The ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by Annex 1 countries could only be considered a first step towards the reduction in world wide emissions growth. Greenhouse gas emissions have grown substantially from around 2 Gigatonnes a year (Gt/y) in 1950 to a little over 8 Gt/y in 2000. A business as usual scenario would see emissions grow to around 17 Gt/y by the year 2100.
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Kyoto Protocol