The Kyoto Protocol

Negotiated in December 1997, the Kyoto Protocol is an amendment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Control. The intent of the amendment is to unite the international community in efforts to reduce global warming and find means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (i.e. methane, nitrous oxide, HFCs and PFCs and carbon dioxide). While those countries that ratify the Protocol agree to reduce usage, they are authorized to use a vehicle known as “emissions trading.” Emissions trading is basically a sale of credits by those countries who have met their reduction quotas to those countries that have not.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, ratifying countries will be obligated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 5.2 percent below levels from 1990. This must be done between the years 2008 and 2012. Each industrialized nation has specific reduction goals (excludes those countries that are considered developing) and strategies to do so, including: placing restrictions on those who are largest polluters, creating transportation solutions which focus on reduction of gas emissions from private automobiles, and use of renewable energy sources such as ethanol.

Under the terms of the Protocol, the amendment was opened for ratification on March 16, 1998 and closed on March 16, 1999; in order for the amendment to take effect (ninety days after full ratification) at least fifty five countries, representing at least fifty five percent of world’s carbon dioxide emissions for the year 1990, had to sign off. In 2002 Iceland became the fifty-fifth country to ratify the Protocol (thus meeting the first condition) and in 2004 Russia ratified (thus meeting the second condition). On February 1, 2005, the Kyoto Protocol became law.

In July of 1997, the United States Senate in the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98), opposed ratification arguing that the protocol should include both developing and industrialized nations. Although Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the amendment in 1998, he made clear that the United States would not act upon such until the Protocol included developing nations. President George W. Bush withdrew support for the Protocol shortly after taking office in 2001, refusing to send the amendment through to Congress.

Bush stated:

This is a challenge that requires a 100 percent effort; ours, and the
rest of the world’s. The world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases is China. Yet China was entirely exempted from the requirements of the Kyoto ProtocolâÂ?¦America’s unwillingness to embrace a flawed treaty should not be read by our friends and allies as any abdication of responsibility.

Bush set forth his own plan – a voluntary program for American businesses where gas emissions would be reduced by 4.5 percent by 2010. Bush argued that his plan would actually reduce greenhouse emissions by almost thirty percent due to the fact that the plan measure reduction against current emission rates rather than the 1990 numbers under the Kyoto Protocol. Further arguments against signing the Protocol include the fact that such reductions would be extremely costly for U.S. business; that the goals of the Protocol are not clearly outlined with definitive guidelines; and that the Protocol in its use of open terminology such as “domestic policies and measures” does not specify actions to be taken. Many critics, including Philip Clooney, a former oil industry advocate, argue that the Bush administration is not taking a real look at the link between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming – a fact that may lead to disaster down the road.

Australia has also opposed the Kyoto Protocol arguing that it could cost Australians jobs.

As of today’s date 141 countries have ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Negotiations for new target emission reductions began in 2005