8. The Kyoto Protocol: global problem, global solution

Climate change on the international agenda and on people's minds

If there were any doubts at Rio about the existence of climate change, they have been all but extinguished by subsequent events. The year 1998 was declared the warmest on record, closely followed by 2001. Weather-related disasters--especially African droughts and Asian floods--have become increasingly common and serious. Evidence of a changing climate gets harder to ignore by the day.

In the closing weeks of 1997, the Japanese city of Kyoto became a household name, synonymous with international efforts to tackle global warming. The Kyoto Protocol represents a landmark in the climate change process. While the consensus reached was an impressive achievement, Kyoto actually represents a very modest first step on the journey.

The stage was set for Kyoto by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), signed at the Earth Summit in 1992. Three years later, an updated review by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body of scientists that monitors the science of global warming, announced that: "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate."

The Kyoto Protocol to the FCCC is notable for its reliance on hard science, as embodied in the IPCC assessments. Signed by 159 nations, it prescribes an overall reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels, to be achieved as an average over the period 2008–2012. The Protocol applies to 38 developed countries and transitional economies--the so-called Annex I Parties.

Within the 5.2 per cent target, individual countries have been allocated a variety of individual objectives, ranging from a reduction of eight per cent in the European Union and seven per cent in the U.S., to an increase of eight per cent in Australia and 10 per cent in Iceland.

To help industrialized countries meet their emission reduction targets, the Protocol puts forward a number of flexibility provisions including emissions trading and projects with developing countries..

Progress towards the Kyoto targets has been patchy. At the end of 2000, overall carbon dioxide emissions among Annex I countries were down 2.6 per cent, thanks largely to a sharp decline in fossil fuel consumption in former Eastern Bloc countries. The European Union managed a cut of 0.5 per cent. However, emissions from the U.S. and Japan had risen by 13 per cent and three per cent respectively.

Furthermore, the international consensus that underpins Kyoto was dealt a severe blow in March 2001, when the incoming Bush administration announced that it did not intend to ratify the Protocol. Further disappointment was to follow four months later, when a meeting of the Parties in Bonn was forced to weaken the Protocol in order to keep it on the rails. Nevertheless, the treaty still stands.

To come into effect, the Protocol now needs to be ratified by at least 55 of the 159 Parties to the Convention, including enough Annex I Parties to account for 55 per cent of that group's emissions. Given that the U.S. is by far the biggest polluter, its withdrawal from the process has made ratification much more difficult. If other countries were to follow the U.S. retreat, the Protocol itself--representing years of painstaking research and delicate negotiation--would be in peril.