Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement whose underlying purpose is to limit global warming. Global warming is an increase in the average temperature of Earth’s surface since the late 1800’s. The protocol requires many countries to limit their emissions (releases) of greenhouse gases. Such gases trap heat in the atmosphere, increasing Earth’s surface temperature through a process known as the greenhouse effect. Human activities that increase greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere include the clearing of land and the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas). The Kyoto Protocol restricts emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and three other greenhouse gases. Most of the world’s countries have agreed to the protocol. But a few nations, including the United States, have refused. The Kyoto Protocol entered into force in 2005.
The terms
of the Kyoto Protocol distinguish between developed parties and developing parties. A developed party is a relatively wealthy country or group of countries. A developing party, in contrast, is one of the world’s poorer nations. Under the protocol, each developed party must restrict its greenhouse gas emissions to a certain yearly target from 2008 to 2012. Parties that miss their targets under the Kyoto Protocol will be required to cut emissions by an even greater amount under the next such agreement. Each party’s target is a certain percentage of its emission levels in 1990. As a whole, the developed parties must cut their emissions to an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels. Developing parties are not required to limit their emissions. The protocol places a heavier burden on developed countries because those countries can more easily pay the cost of cutting emissions.
Developed countries must limit emissions within their own borders to meet their targets. But the protocol also allows countries to work with one another to earn and trade emissions credits. Developed parties can earn emissions credits by funding projects that reduce emissions in other nations. For instance, a developed party could help a developing country build a hydroelectric power plant instead of one that burns fossil fuels. In doing so, the developed party can earn emissions credits, which it could use to offset (make up for) emissions in excess of its target. Developed parties may also offset their emissions by enhancing carbon sinks. Carbon sinks are natural resources, such as forests, that remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
Controversy.
Some critics of the Kyoto Protocol doubt a connection between increased greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. To address concerns about the link between human activities and climate change, the United Nations (UN) created a committee called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC released several scientific reports during the 1990’s and 2000’s. The reports seek to establish a consensus (general agreement) among climate scientists from around the world. In its 2007 report, the IPCC cited a greater than 90-percent likelihood that most of the observed warming since the mid-1900’s is due to the human-caused increase in levels of greenhouse gases.
Some politicians have expressed concerns that the protocol could cause economic harm by discouraging the use of fossil fuels. The burning of such fuels is a major industrial activity in the United States and other developed countries. Other critics have claimed that the treaty does not require adequate participation from developing countries.
History.
The Kyoto Protocol serves as an addition to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, a treaty adopted in 1992 to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations. Delegates from more than 160 countries adopted the protocol at a 1997 meeting in Kyoto, Japan. To become legally enforceable, the protocol had to be ratified (formally approved) by at least 55 countries. In addition, the developed parties ratifying the protocol had to account for at least 55 percent of the total CO2 emissions of all developed countries in 1990.
Delegates worked to complete the details of the agreement in a series of meetings. Most countries eventually agreed to the protocol, but some nations chose not to ratify it. These nations included the United States, whose 1990 emissions of CO2 represented the highest share of the total for developed countries, 35 percent. In 1997, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously not to sign any agreement that did not include emissions reductions for developing countries or that would seriously harm the U.S. economy. In 1998, the administration of President Bill Clinton signed the Kyoto Protocol but did not submit it to the Senate for approval. In 2001, President George W. Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol.
Rejection by the United States made it critical for other developed countries to ratify the protocol. Even if all the other developed countries except Russia ratified the protocol, the ratifying countries’ 1990 emissions would fall short of the 55 percent required. In 2004, Russia’s parliament voted to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, fulfilling the last requirement.
The protocol entered into force in 2005. In the same year, the European Union began working to meet its obligations by establishing its Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading Scheme, often called the EU ETS. The scheme sets limits on emissions by power plants and other large sources of greenhouse gases. It also enables facilities to buy and sell emissions allowances. The Kyoto Protocol also led to the creation of a global “carbon market” for the trading of greenhouse gas emissions. Developing countries began to participate in emissions reductions through hundreds of clean development projects.
In late 2005, delegates from the parties agreed to extend the Kyoto Protocol until the end of 2012. Parties to the protocol discussed extending the agreement again at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2009, in Cancún, Mexico, in 2010, Durban, South Africa, in 2011, and Doha, Qatar, in 2012. The discussions included new commitments and revisions that would be in effect until 2020. However, the amendments have not been ratified by enough countries to enter into force. The talks also failed to produce an alternative to the protocol. At the 2015 conference, in Paris, delegates developed a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol in which all countries agreed to lower their emissions voluntarily. This pact, called the Paris Agreement, entered into force in November 2016.
