Kyoto Protocol

   Kyoto Protocol

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. The UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty with the goal of achieving the "stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentration sin the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."

The Protocol was adopted on 11 December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, and entered into force on 16 February 2005. As of September 2011, 191 states have signed and ratified the protocol. 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.

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 fourgreenhouse gases (GHG) (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride) and two groups of gases (hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons). All member countries give general commitments.

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. 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.

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

The benchmark 1990 emission levels accepted by the Conference of the Parties of UNFCCC (decision 2/CP.3) were the values of "global warming potential" calculated for the IPCC Second Assessment Report.^[14] These figures are used for converting the various greenhouse gas emissions into comparable carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂-eq) when computing overall sources and sinks.

The Protocol allows for several "flexible mechanisms", such as emissions trading, the clean development mechanism (CDM) andjoint 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.

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. These countries nominate a person (called a "designated national authority") to create and manage its greenhouse gas inventory. 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.

At the 2012 Doha climate change talks, Parties to the Kyoto Protocol agreed to an extension of the Kyoto Protocol to 2020. Participants in the extension to the Kyoto Protocol have taken on targets for the period 2013-2020, and include Australia, the European Union, and a number of other developed countries. 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 The outcome of the Doha talks has received a mixed response,with small island states critical of the overall package. The Kyoto extension applies to about 15% of annual global emissions of greenhouse gases. Other results of the conference include a timetable for a global agreement to be adopted by 2015 which includes all countries.