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The Kyoto Protocol was signed in December of 1997 and entered into force as international law in February of 2005. More than 160 countries are parties to the treaty, which is the cornerstone of the global climate change regime. Its main purpose is to impose binding commitments on industrialized nations to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases, the major cause of global warming, within a specified time frame. The treaty also requires all signatory governments to submit national reports on their efforts to reduce emissions, thereby promoting transparency and compliance.

United Nations and Climate Change

The global climate change regime, centered around the United Nations (UN), represents one of the most ambitious projects in the history of international environmental law. In 1988, responding to concerns from scientists and environmental groups, the World Meteorological Organization and the UN Environmental Program (UNEP) established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a multinational group of scientists and other experts, to survey existing studies on global warming and to present their findings to governments. In 1990, the IPCC reported that global warming did pose a threat and was likely the result of human activities.

Thus, in the context of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (commonly known as the Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro, UN member states negotiated the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), the first international treaty to address the issue. The FCCC sets the objective of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and requires industrialized countries to inventory their emissions. The FCCC promotes the “precautionary principle,” the idea that lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as an excuse for inaction. It also recognizes the notion of “common but differentiated responsibility”; while all countries have a responsibility to tackle climate change, the industrialized nations, given their historical responsibility and greater means, should bear a greater share of the burden than their developing country counterparts.

However, the FCCC was vague and imposed no binding commitments on states. In 1995, parties to the FCCC embarked on negotiations to create an additional agreement with specific limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Years of intense negotiations resulted in a new treaty, adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on December 11, 1997. The Kyoto Protocol sets targets for 39 industrialized countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 2012, with an average reduction of just over 5 percent below the established baseline levels of 1990. Many of the details on how to implement the protocol were left to future negotiations, which were completed in 2001 with the signing of the Marrakech Accords.

In order for the protocol to enter into force – to become binding international law – two criteria were established. First, at least 55 states would have to ratify. Ratification is the domestic legal process by which countries formally accept their treaty commitments. Second, these ratifications would have to constitute at least 55 percent of industrial nations’ total emissions of greenhouse gasses. While the first threshold was crossed early on, several large emitters, including the United States (36 percent of industrial emissions), Japan (8.5 percent), Russia (17 percent), and Canada (3.3 percent) faced substantial domestic political obstacles to ratification. In March of 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush pronounced the treaty “fatally flawed,” and withdrew his government from the Kyoto process. With strong European Union (EU) leadership and Russia’s ratification in late 2004, enough emissions were covered to achieve the second threshold for entry into force, which went into effect shortly thereafter.

Features of the Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol outlines several different policy options in order to meet emissions reduction targets. Governments may employ a variety of “policies and measures” in the form of industrial, agricultural, and transportation regulation and incentives, as well as investment into improved energy efficiency and alternatives to fossil fuels, to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The protocol also allows governments to enhance carbon “sinks,” which are natural mechanisms that draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Most sinks are in the form of forests, although land use techniques can also store carbon in the ground.

In addition to these domestic measures, the treaty also provides for three international policy options, commonly referred to as the “Kyoto mechanisms.” First, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) allows industrialized countries (with binding emissions targets) to sponsor projects that reduce emission in developing countries (without binding targets). The former can earn credits toward their own targets through such practices, while the latter benefit from investment and infusions of cleaner technology.

Second, similar to the CDM, Joint Implementation allows industrialized countries to earn emission reduction credits by paying for projects in other industrialized countries. Third, government may meet their targets by engaging in “emissions trading.” Those governments that exceed their required targets accrue credits, which can then be sold to governments that have not met their targets. This “carbon market” allows governments additional options of buying their way into compliance.

The principle behind these international mechanisms is that net emissions reductions are equally helpful wherever they occur since the atmosphere is a global commons. Without geographical constraints, investments into emissions reductions will flow to where they can be applied in the most cost-effective manner, providing both flexibility and efficiency.

Two additional features of the treaty are notable: the employment of successive five-year “commitment periods” and substantial reporting requirements. The first commitment period is from 2008 to 2012; the targets established in the protocol must be met by the end of that time. New targets will be negotiated for each subsequent five-year commitment period, and countries that are not bound by targets can assume commitments for future periods. To monitor compliance, all parties must submit national reports on implementation at regular intervals, and industrialized countries must provide additional information on greenhouse gas emissions and removals, including any activities under the international mechanisms.

Bibliography:

Michael Grubb, ed., The Kyoto Protocol: A Guide and Assessment (Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1999);
Jon Hovi, Tora Skodvin, and Steinar Andresen, “The Persistence of the Kyoto Protocol: Why Other Annex 1 Countries Move on without the United States,” Global Environmental Politics (November 2003);
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report (Cambridge University Press, 2001);
Sebastian Oberthur and Hermann Ott, The Kyoto Protocol: International Climate Policy for the 21st Century (Springer, 1999);
Sharon Spray and Karen McGlothlin, , Global Climate Change (Rowman and Littlefield, 2002);
UN FCCC, Caring for Climate: A Guide to the Climate Change Convention and the Kyoto Protocol (Climate Change Secretariat, 2005).