Nature Features

The Kyoto Protocol - its targets and how to meet them

Dec 11, 2007, 10:18 GMT

Washington - The Kyoto Protocol is the world's first attempt to regulate industrialized countries' emissions of greenhouse-gas emissions blamed for global warming. Signed in 1997, the treaty entered into force on February 16, 2005 and expires at the end of 2012. Though it has now been ratified by 175 countries, only 36 of those participants are subjected to emissions cuts under the treaty. Developing countries did not have to commit to reductions. The United States never ratified Kyoto, while Australia's newly elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd only just signed the treaty on his first day in office December 3. Australia will join once the treaty is ratified by parliament. If met, Kyoto's targets would reduce the emissions of participating countries an average of 5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. Kyoto's 36 participants account for about one-third of global emissions - the US and China alone emit about 50 per cent. Emissions worldwide will still increase about 30 per cent by 2012 if the Kyoto targets are met - about 2 per cent less than without Kyoto - according to the US-based Pew Centre on Global Climate Change. The 36 countries with limits under Kyoto are currently on target for an 11-per-cent reduction in emissions by 2012, according to new December figures from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, under which the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN-backed panel of scientists, has suggested a post-Kyoto treaty would need much more stringent cuts of 60 per cent worldwide by 2050 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The targets for reducing emissions under Kyoto vary from country to country, anywhere from a 10-per-cent increase over 1990 to an 8- per-cent decrease. The European Union has banded together to achieve its goal of an 8-per-cent reduction and distributed widely different rates among its more and less-developed member states. The EU's internal targets range from a 28-per-cent cut by Luxembourg and 21 per cent by Germany, to a 27-per-cent increase allowed Portugal. To help countries reach those targets, Kyoto for the first time set up a global carbon market, introducing a global price for emissions of carbon dioxide - the chief greenhouse gas. Countries that are faring better than their targets can sell 'emissions credits' to countries unlikely to meet their own. While developing countries were left out of the emissions reduction targets, they too have a role by way of the 'Clean Development Mechanism.' Industrial nations can claim emissions credits by sponsoring clean alternatives and emissions-reducing projects in developing economies. © 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

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NoharnessDec 14th, 2007 - 13:26:14

RE:'To help countries reach those targets, Kyoto for the first time set up a global carbon market, introducing a global price for emissions of carbon dioxide - the chief greenhouse gas. Countries that are faring better than their targets can sell 'emissions credits' to countries unlikely to meet their own.'

Let's see, neither India nor China has a prayer of hitting those targets. The US and the EU could come close if they tried real hard, but I doubt that they could ever prove it. Anyone ever ask how a nation proves it reached its assigned targets? Anyone ever ask who would be conducting the audit? Did you ever think about the fact that maybe there is more than a little mistrust at work here?

Anyway, who would wind up paying whom and where would they get the money?

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NoharnessDec 15th, 2007 - 17:31:33

If these people really wanted to reach these goals, they would be out demanding that coal-fired power plants be replaced with nuclear fission plants. They aren't doing that, so I am obliged to assume that they are simply out making a grab for political power. It also becomes clear that is merely an excuse to isolate and then destroy the United States.

A pox on all your houses. Global warming? Guess what, boys and girls, the US can handle it alone. We do not really need you. If you want our help, you had best start using reason and be just wee bit less insulting.

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Fool on the hillDec 22nd, 2007 - 18:43:46

Kyoto has already failed and any agreement made in Bali has failed even before the ink was dry.
The only thing that will stop most countries burning fossil carbon fuels is when there are no more fossil carbon fuels to burn.

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The Kyoto Protocol - its targets and how to meet them

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