KYOTO PROTOCOL

KYOTO PROTOCOL

Ø  The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) sets binding obligations on industrialised countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

Ø  The Protocol was adopted on 11 December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, and entered into force on 16 February 2005.

Ø  As of September 2011, 191 states have signed and ratified the protocol.

Ø  The United States signed but did not ratify the Protocol and Canada withdrew from it in 2011. Other United Nations member states which did not ratify the protocol are Afghanistan, Andorra and South Sudan.

Ø  In 2011, the Canadian government invoked Canada's legal right to formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. Canada was committed to cutting its greenhouse emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by 2012, but in 2009 emissions were 17% higher than in 1990. Environment minister Peter Kent cited Canada's liability to "enormous financial penalties" under the treaty unless it withdrew.

Ø  Under the Protocol, 37 industrialized countries and the then European Community (the European Union-15, made up of 15 states at the time of the Kyoto negotiations) ("Annex I Parties") commit themselves to limit or reduce their emissions of four greenhouse gases (GHG) (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride) and two groups of gases (hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons). All member countries give general commitments.

Ø  At negotiations, Annex I countries collectively agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% on average for the period 2008-2012, relative to their annual emissions in a base year, usually 1990.

Ø  Since the US has not ratified the treaty, the collective emissions reduction of Annex I Kyoto countries falls from 5.2% to 4.2% below base year.

Ø  Emission limits do not include emissions by international aviation and shipping.

Ø  The benchmark 1990 emission levels accepted by the Conference of the Parties of UNFCCC were the values of "global warming potential" calculated for the IPCC Second Assessment Report.

Ø  These figures are used for converting the various greenhouse gas emissions into comparable carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2-eq) when computing overall sources and sinks.

Ø  The Protocol allows for several "flexible mechanisms", such as emissions trading, the clean development mechanism (CDM) and joint implementation to allow Annex I countries to meet their GHG emission limitations by purchasing GHG emission reductions credits from elsewhere, through financial exchanges, projects that reduce emissions in non-Annex I countries, from other Annex I countries, or from annex I countries with excess allowances.

Ø  Each Annex I country is required to submit an annual report of inventories of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions from sources and removals from sinks under UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol.

Ø  Virtually all of the non-Annex I countries have also established a designated national authority to manage its Kyoto obligations, specifically the "CDM process" that determines which GHG projects they wish to propose for accreditation by the CDM Executive Board.

Ø  It excluded developing countries like China and India, which have since become the world's largest and fourth largest polluters according to the International Energy Agency, as well as second-placed United States which refused to ratify the deal.

Ø  Qatar is the country with highest carbon dioxide emissions per capita.

Ø  Belarus, Malta, and Turkey are Annex I Parties but do not have Kyoto targets.[

Ø  At the 2012 Doha climate change talks, Parties to the Kyoto Protocol agreed to an extension of the Kyoto Protocol to 2020.

Ø  From January 1, 2013 to the end of 2020, when a new, global deal will enter into force, the protocol will live on in the form of a “second commitment period.”

Ø  Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine (as well as the United States and Canada, which are not Parties in the 2013-2020 Kyoto period) have not taken on new targets.

Ø  The Kyoto extension applies to about 15% of annual global emissions of greenhouse gases.

Ø  A timetable has been pepared for a global agreement to be adopted by 2015 which includes all countries.

Ø  Russia, Japan, New Zealand and Canada, the only country to have withdrawn from the pact, have not renewed their emissions targets in a second round.

Ø  The 27-member European Union has committed itself to a 20 percent cut on 1990 emission levels, dismissing calls to raise the bar to 30 percent.

Ø  The other signatories and their targets are:

Australia — 5 percent on 2000 levels (the only country not to use 1990 as a base year.)

Belarus — 8 percent

Croatia — 20 percent (with the EU)

Iceland — 20 percent (with the EU)

Kazakhstan — 7 percent

Liechtenstein — 20 percent

Monaco — 30 percent

Norway — 30 percent

Switzerland — 20 percent

Ukraine — 20 percent

Ø  Former East Bloc countries like Russia and Poland managed to stock up billions of credits because of lenient targets, so-called “hot air” which the new deal allows them to bank into a follow-up period. The text is quiet on what happens after 2020.

Ø  “Hot air,” when traded, causes emissions to be cancelled on paper but not in the atmosphere.

Ø  Most potential markets, including the EU and Australia, have said they will not be buying credits carried over from 2012 — an issue that complicated the Doha negotiations with Russia and Poland.