Kyoto Protocol

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Kyoto Protocol

United Nations document

Date: December 11, 1997

Source: United Nations. "Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change." December 11, 1997. <http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html> (accessed May 16, 2006).

About the Author: The United Nations is an organization comprising almost all the world's recognized nations. It facilitates international cooperation in matters pertaining to law, security, economic development, and human rights.

INTRODUCTION

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement, signed by 163 countries, that was appended to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1997. The protocol opened for signature in 1997 and entered into force—that is, became law for those countries that had both signed and ratified it—in 2005. The purpose of the protocol is to control the production of six greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide, that are released by agriculture and industry and that many believe are changing the climate of the Earth.

In 1988, the United Nations created the International Panel on Climate Change to study the question of whether the world's weather was becoming warmer or cooler. The first report of the panel was issued in 1990. It affirmed that the Earth was probably warming as a result of human activity. In 1992, the greatest number of national leaders to attend any gathering up to that time met in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the Earth Summit. This group created the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, also known as the Rio Convention. The Rio Convention called for the stabilization of greenhouse-gas emissions by 2000. The United States was among the countries that ratified the Rio Convention.

Starting in 1995, the signatories of the Rio Convention held a meeting called the Conference of Parties every year. The third Conference of Parties was held in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. Here the Kyoto Protocol to the Rio Convention was negotiated. The Kyoto Protocol called for a more aggressive approach to the reduction of greenhouse gases than the 1990 convention. Specifically, it sought a global reduction of greenhouse-gas emission of five percent from 1990 levels by 2008–2012. Individual country targets varied; Germany agreed to a twenty-five percent cut, the United Kingdom to a fifteen percent cut, and the United States to a seven percent cut. The United States signed the Kyoto Protocol but has neither ratified nor officially withdrawn from it.

PRIMARY SOURCE

The Parties to this Protocol,

Being Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, hereinafter referred to as "the Convention", In pursuit of the ultimate objective of the Convention as stated in its Article 2, Recalling the provisions of the Convention, Being guided by Article 3 of the Convention, Pursuant to the Berlin Mandate adopted by decision 1/CP.1 of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention at its first session, Have agreed as follows:

ARTICLE 2

Each Party included in Annex I, in achieving its quantified emission limitation and reduction commitments under Article 3, in order to promote sustainable development, shall:
1. Implement and/or further elaborate policies and measures in accordance with its national circumstances, such as:
  1. Enhancement of energy efficiency in relevant sectors of the national economy;
  2. Protection and enhancement of sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol, taking into account its commitments under relevant international environmental agreements; promotion of sustainable forest management practices, afforestation and reforestation;
  3. Promotion of sustainable forms of agriculture in light of climate change considerations;
  4. Research on, and promotion, development and increased use of, new and renewable forms of energy, of carbon dioxide sequestration technologies and of advanced and innovative environmentally sound technologies;
  5. Progressive reduction or phasing out of market imperfections, fiscal incentives, tax and duty exemptions and subsidies in all greenhouse gas emitting sectors that run counter to the objective of the Convention and application of market instruments;
  6. Encouragement of appropriate reforms in relevant sectors aimed at promoting policies and measures which limit or reduce emissions of greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol;
  7. Measures to limit and/or reduce emissions of greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol in the transport sector;
  8. Limitation and/or reduction of methane emissions through recovery and use in waste management, as well as in the production, transport and distribution of energy;
2. Cooperate with other such Parties to enhance the individual and combined effectiveness of their policies and measures adopted under this Article, pursuant to Article 4, paragraph 2(e)(i), of the Convention. To this end, these Parties shall take steps to share their experience and exchange information on such policies and measures, including developing ways of improving their comparability, transparency and effectiveness. The Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to this Protocol shall, at its first session or as soon as practicable thereafter, consider ways to facilitate such cooperation, taking into account all relevant information.
The Parties included in Annex I shall pursue limitation or reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol from aviation and marine bunker fuels, working through the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Maritime Organization, respectively.
The Parties included in Annex I shall strive to implement policies and measures under this Article in such a way as to minimize adverse effects, including the adverse effects of climate change, effects on international trade, and social, environmental and economic impacts on other Parties, especially developing country Parties and in particular those identified in Article 4, paragraphs 8 and 9, of the Convention, taking into account Article 3 of the Convention. The Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to this Protocol may take further action, as appropriate, to promote the implementation of the provisions of this paragraph.
The Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to this Protocol, if it decides that it would be beneficial to coordinate any of the policies and measures in paragraph 1(a) above, taking into account different national circumstances and potential effects, shall consider ways and means to elaborate the coordination of such policies and measures.

ARTICLE 3

The Parties included in Annex I shall, individually or jointly, ensure that their aggregate anthropogenic carbon dioxide equivalent emissions of the greenhouse gases listed in Annex A do not exceed their assigned amounts, calculated pursuant to their quantified emission limitation and reduction commitments inscribed in Annex B and in accordance with the provisions of this Article, with a view to reducing their overall emissions of such gases by at least 5 per cent below 1990 levels in the commitment period 2008 to 2012.
Each Party included in Annex I shall, by 2005, have made demonstrable progress in achieving its commitments under this Protocol.…

ARTICLE 28

The original of this Protocol, of which the Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish texts are equally authentic, shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

DONE at Kyoto this eleventh day of December one thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven.

SIGNIFICANCE

The administration of President Bill Clinton was only moderately friendly to the Kyoto Protocol. Key figures in the Administration admitted the reality of global climate change, but the administration never submitted the protocol to the U.S. Congress for ratification. With the election of George W. Bush in 2000, U.S. policy turned strongly against the Kyoto Protocol. President Bush and his supporters have repeatedly emphasized that they consider global climate change itself to be uncertain or, if real, not necessarily caused by human activity. Both the Clinton and Bush administrations feared that implementation of the Kyoto Protocol would harm the economy of the United States.

Although the reality of global climate change is disputed by a few scientists, the great majority of scientists who study climate agree that the Earth's weather is not only changing, but changing as a result of human activities that release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the air. Carbon dioxide is released primarily by burning coal and petroleum products, such as gasoline. Statements affirming that human activity is modifying the climate have been issued by many scientific groups, including the American Meteorological Society (2003), the American Geophysical Union (2003), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2004). The latter urged that "governments and consumers in the United States and worldwide should take immediate steps to reduce the threat of global warming and to prepare for a future in which coastal flooding, reduced crop yields and elevated rates of climate-related illness are all but certain." Whether or not the Kyoto Protocol's carbon-dioxide reduction goals would be adequate even if implemented by all its signatories—including the United States, the world's largest greenhouse-gas emitter, both per-capita and overall—is scientifically uncertain. Proponents of the protocol argue that given the global stakes, it is better to begin taking even inadequate steps rather than no steps at all. Opponents fall into several camps. Some, including many political conservatives in the U.S., argue that global climate change may not be happening, may not be caused by human activity if it is happening, and may not be avoidable even if it is happening and is caused by human activity. Others argue that the Kyoto Protocol is economically irrational and would cause net harm to human well-being even if it succeeded in mitigating global climate change. U.S. criticism of the protocol argues that it does not ask for sufficient greenhouse-gas reductions from China, the second-largest greenhouse-gas emitter.

As the scientific consensus that greenhouse warming is real, potentially disastrous, and human-caused becomes more complete, U.S. political attitudes toward greenhouse-gas mitigation appear to be changing. In July 2005, the U.S. Senate approved a non-binding bipartisan resolution affirming that "there is growing scientific consensus that human activity is a substantial cause of greenhouse gas accumulation" and calling for "mandatory market-based limits" on greenhouse-gas emissions. In April 2006, the California Legislature began consideration of the Global Warming Solutions Act, which would set the first mandatory statewide caps on greenhouse-gas emissions. Since the bill reflects targets for greenhouse-gas reductions set by the Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, it is likely to pass. "I say, the debate is over," Schwarzenegger said in June 2005. "We know the science. We see the threat, and we know that the time for action is now." In May 2005, 132 mayors of U.S. cities and towns formed a bipartisan coalition to implement the Kyoto Protocol's emissions targets at a community level.

In May 2006, a study by the National Academy of Sciences that had been commissioned by President George W. Bush announced that global warming is "real and particularly strong within the past 20 years" and attributed the warming primarily to carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels. The report said that "Global warming could well have serious adverse societal and ecological impacts by the end of this century."