
Delegates celebrated adoption of the Protocol in 1997.
|
The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding
targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse
gas (GHG) emissions .These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the
five-year period 2008-2012.
The major distinction between the Protocol and the Convention is that while the Convention
encouraged industrialised countries to stabilize GHG emissions, the Protocol
commits them to do so.
Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels
of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity,
the Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of
“common but differentiated responsibilities.”
|
The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on
16 February 2005. The detailed rules for the implementation of the Protocol were adopted at
COP 7 in Marrakesh in 2001, and are called the “Marrakesh Accords.”
|
The Kyoto mechanisms
Under the Treaty, countries must meet their targets primarily through national measures. However, the
Kyoto Protocol offers them an additional means of meeting their targets by way of three market-based
mechanisms.
The Kyoto mechanisms are:
The mechanisms help stimulate green investment and help Parties meet their emission targets in a
cost-effective way.
Monitoring emission targets
Under the Protocol, countries’actual emissions have to be monitored and precise records have to
be kept of the trades carried out.
Registry systems track
and record transactions by Parties under the mechanisms. The UN Climate Change Secretariat, based in
Bonn, Germany, keeps an international transaction log to verify
that transactions are consistent with the rules of the Protocol.
Reporting is done by Parties by
way of submitting annual emission inventories and national reports under the Protocol at regular
intervals.
A compliance system ensures
that Parties are meeting their commitments and helps them to meet their commitments if they have
problems doing so.
Adaptation The Kyoto Protocol, like the
Convention, is also designed to assist countries in adapting to the adverse effects of climate
change. It facilitates the development and deployment of techniques that can help increase resilience
to the impacts of climate change.
The Adaptation Fund was
established to finance adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries that are Parties to
the Kyoto Protocol. The Fund is financed mainly with a share of proceeds from CDM project activities.
The road ahead
The Kyoto Protocol is generally seen as an important first step towards a truly global emission
reduction regime that will stabilize GHG emissions, and provides the essential architecture for any
future international agreement on climate change.
By the end of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012, a new international
framework needs to have been negotiated and ratified that can deliver the stringent emission
reductions the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has
clearly indicated are needed.
More information on targets
|