Sixteen years after its inception the Kyoto Convention is still groping its way towards becoming a genuinely useful framework for tackling global climate change.
In 1992 the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change launched the world’s most complex and ambitious attempt to tackle what has become an increasingly urgent global problem. Sixteen years later, how far has the process gone, and where is it heading?
The Kyoto Convention
Based on the scientific evidence then available, the original Kyoto Convention recognised that the world’s climates were changing in potentially damaging ways as a result of rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Crucially, and at the time controversially, a wide range of human activities from deforestation to industry, energy generation and transportation were thought to be responsible for the increase.
The Convention therefore concluded a broad agreement for the world community to share data and adopt appropriate policies to control and reduce their emissions levels. 192 countries ratified the Convention, including the USA.
However with each new piece of evidence from the scientists it soon became clear that the threats from climate change were more serious and more immediate than many had thought, and a general, voluntary agreement would not be enough to meet the challenge.
The Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol, drafted in 1997, repeated calls for all countries to adopt policies to control or reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But as a significant step forward, for a specific list of 40 “developed” countries the Protocol included a set of commitments and defined, quantitative targets for emissions reductions.
The overall goal was for the listed countries to reduce their combined total greenhouse gas emissions by five percent below 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012.
Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets
Specific reduction targets varied by country to reflect local circumstances. Most European countries agreed on targets of 8 percent below 1990 levels, although countries within the EU agreed to redistribute the overall target among themselves. For example the UK adopted a reduction target of 12.5 percent.
The target for the USA was to be 7 percent. For three countries, New Zealand, Russia and Ukraine, the target was set at parity with 1990 emissions levels and for three others, Australia, Iceland and Norway, targets were actually allowed to be above 1990 emissions levels because of special circumstances in those countries.
A key feature of the Kyoto Protocol was that, aside from Japan, no specific reduction targets were set for any country in Asia, Africa or Latin America. All developing countries committed themselves to broad policy goals for controlling their greenhouse gas emissions, and the “Kyoto mechanisms” were set up to encourage developed countries to help developing countries adopt low-emissions technologies, and to provide for “emissions trading” between countries.
Ratification of the Kyoto Protocol
Bringing the Protocol into force required ratification by at least 55 countries responsible for at least 55 percent of global emissions. Meeting this requirement was far from automatic, and the treaty’s prospects seemed dim when President Bush announced in 2001 that the USA, while accepting in principle the need to control greenhouse gas emissions, would not ratify the Protocol as long as it imposed binding targets on some countries while excusing others, notably China and India.
The Protocol was adjusted at a meeting in Bonn in 2001 in an attempt to persuade reluctant countries to commit to it. In setting targets, more allowance was included for natural carbon sinks in the form of extended forested areas. The changes proved enough to bring Russia and Japan into compliance.
Russia’s ratification of the Protocol in November 2004 satisfied the 55 percent requirement, bringing the Protocol into force 90 days later in February 2005.
The ratification process continued as initially sceptical countries like Australia eventually signed. By early 2008 177 countries had officially committed to the Protocol, but still not including the USA and a handful of small countries.
Marrakesh Accords
Despite the commitments, the Protocol would be meaningless without a transparent, standard and comprehensive means of measuring and reporting emissions levels. The Marrakesh Accords of 2001 established and refined the necessary technical parameters and procedures. Each developed country was required to set up a national system to estimate its greenhouse gas emissions and removals, along with a national registry to account for, record and monitor emissions trading transactions.
The Bali Agreement
The Protocol extends only to 2012, in a sense a trial period for setting, testing and reviewing the target levels and monitoring systems prior to a longer term agreement. A meeting in Bali in December 2007 set a framework for a two-year negotiation process, leading to a binding agreement covering the period beyond 2012 at a summit meeting in Denmark in 2009.
