Kyoto Protocol Achievements
The Partial Control of Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The Kyoto Protocol has had some effect in controlling worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases, but not much.
The Kyoto Protocol, agreed in 1997 and in force since February 2005, represents the world’s most ambitious attempt at tackling the on-going process of global climate change. Its main quantifiable target during its first phase was for a list of 40 developed countries to reduce their aggregate greenhouse gas emissions to five percent below 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012. As negotiations begin for the second phase, how effective has the Protocol been?
Monitoring Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Measuring greenhouse gas emissions is a complex process. Under the Kyoto Protocol’s Marrakesh Accords each developed country is required to have in place a recording and reporting system, set up within a common framework of guidelines; teams of international, independent specialists audit each national report. Reports cover emissions from all sections of the economy, including adjustments for land use, land use changes and the forest cover, which may collectively add to the emissions total or serve as a ‘sink’, withdrawing carbon from the atmosphere.
National reports also reflect certified emissions reductions earned from “Clean Development Mechanism” and “Joint Implementation” projects, and emissions trading with other countries.
Despite its complexity the process of data recording, analysis, reporting and auditing is transparent, with numerous reports available through the UNFCCC website.
Actual Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Overall, greenhouse gas emissions for the 40 developed countries declined by almost five percent from 1990 to 2005. While this appears encouraging, much of the decrease resulted from steep declines in the states of the former USSR and eastern Europe in the early 1990s; total emissions for all other developed countries have actually risen by about 10 percent, and since 1994 the overall trend for all 40 countries has been upward.
A few Western European countries have been relatively successful in meeting their targets. Of the major sources of emissions, France, the UK and Germany achieved reductions of 7, 15 and 19 percent. In contrast emissions increased by more than 50 percent in Canada, Spain and Turkey.
Emissions from the USA increased by about 16 percent. While this is far from the worst performance among the developed countries, it matters hugely because the USA contributes about a third of all global emissions.
Emissions from Developing Countries
From a broader perspective, even if the developed countries somehow achieve the five percent emissions reduction target by 2008-2012, massive changes under way in the developing countries mean that that decline is unlikely to be enough to stabilise levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Emissions from China and India have increased substantially. One estimate suggests that total emissions rose by about 50 percent from 1990 to 2004 and that rates are increasing at the rate of 4 or 5 percent each year in each country, perhaps higher in China. China will overtake the USA as the world’s biggest source of greenhouse gases very soon, though some believe it already did so as early as 2006.
Deforestation in many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America has the joint effects of releasing greenhouse gases and reducing the world’s capacity for absorbing them. Deforestation, especially in the developing countries, is recognised as a major contributor to rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The Keeling Curve
The ultimate test of the world community’s resolve is not the achievement of emissions reduction targets but the actual levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These levels have been measured regularly and precisely since 1959, originally by the American scientist Charles David Keeling and now by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California.
The resulting “Keeling Curve” is a sobering reminder of the world’s predicament. Average annual CO2 levels have risen from 317 parts per million in 1960 to 354 in 1990, the base year under the Kyoto Protocol, and 384 in 2007. Thus CO2 levels have risen by 21 percent in 47 years. Worse, CO2 levels are increasing at an increasing rate, from less than 1 percent per year in the 1960s to more than 2 percent per year since 2000.
Despite the enormous effort and controversy in agreeing, ratifying and implementing the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol, so far it has proved at best only partly successful in controlling worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases. Something far more effective will be needed for the next phase, covering the period after 2012.
