Kyoto Protocol Essay

The UNFCCC was established in 1994 to address climate change at an international level. Since then, the parties to the convention (including the EU) meet annually in Conferences of the Parties. The Kyoto Protocol (1997) set an obligation for developed countries to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, through setting national targets, using 1990 as a base level. The UK has been one of only a few countries to comply with the international obligation and has reduced GHG emissions since 1990.

It requires all parties to put their best efforts and requirements to report emissions on a regular basis. Every 5 years, there will be a global stock take to assess the progress toward achieving the purpose of the Agreement (UNFCCC- The Paris Agreement, 2018). A climate change conference where leaders all over the world came together to address climate change, have a goal to deliver action by 2020. In order to be successful, participating countries must make enough provisions to develop financial and technological support to help developing countries. The Marrakech partnership for good clime change action provides agreed outcomes in Paris, by providing a detailed structure to help speed up and get rid of gas emissions, scale down the pace of climate action among parties and non-parties steak holders in all parts of the world. Each year the action plan will continue to evolve as progress is made and new challenges and opportunities arise. The Paris agreement requires all parties to forward their effects nationally determined contributions. This includes regular reports on emissions and plans to success. As all parties have agreed to work together during the time frame 2017-2020, there has been current progeress to minimizing emissions (UNFCCC- Marrakech partnership for global climate action,

An added twist on the cap policy allows firms to trade emission allotments between themselves based on the buyer of allotment bargaining with the seller over the proper price to pay for the extra allotment. A two-panel diagram is needed to better understand the logic of trading emission allotments. Figure 4 illustrates the marginal cost of reducing emissions of two firms. One firm is run on older technology with high abatement costs that goes from right to left with zero costs represented at the lower right-hand corner of the diagram. The other firm has newer technology in its plant with lower abatement costs that goes left to right with zero costs represented at the lower left-hand corner of the diagram. The width of the horizontal axis is the reduction in emissions that must be achieved overall to an efficient level.

The Kyoto Protocol is a binding international agreement, which began in Kyoto, Japan in 1997. As of June 2013, there were a total of 192 parties participating in the Kyoto Protocol, Canada was no longer one of them. Canada was one of the first to sign the agreement, in 1998; more than 4 years later, Canada formally approved the Kyoto Accord, in 2002 ("CBC.ca - Timeline: Canada and Kyoto"). This meant Canada would have to decrease its emissions, by 6% in comparison to 1990 levels (461 Mt), by the year 2012. Despite some efforts, Canada failed to meet these requirements and in fact increased total emissions by roughly 24% by the year 2008. Canada formally withdrew from the Kyoto Accord in 2011, avoiding

A cap-and-trade program sets a maximum level of pollution, and distributes emission permits among firms that produce emissions (Carbon Tax, 2013). The purpose of which is regulation of specific emissions by stationary and mobile sources, and setting a specific level which all emitters are re-quired to meet. Cap-and-trade possibly has less of a direct economic component to it than the other alternatives to reducing emissions described due to the ability to trade permits versus the expendi-ture of resources improving technology, with some arguing it is to the detriment of the environment. As stated in the article found in Reclaiming the Environmental Agenda, by Ashford, N. et al., 2008, “being a market-based instrument, ‘the cap-and-trade option suggests that at least this form of MBI may be more environmentally effective than the usual command-and-control alternatives, in addition to being more economically efficient.” (Ashford, N. and Caldart, C., 2008, p. 908).

Its adoption in 1997 and ratification in 2002 furthered the fight against anthropogenic interference with earth’s climate system. Canada’s commitment began with a goal to reduce GHGs by 6% reduction from 1990 levels by 2012, or 461 megatons (Canada and the Kyoto Protocol 2016). In order to achieve these goals, legal requirements expected policies and measures prepared by the participating countries to reduce GHGs, by utilizing all available mechanisms, including joint implementation to earn emissions reduction units (ERU) to be counted towards the target, the clean development mechanism and emissions trading (Kyoto Protocol 1997). Every year, on the date set forth, every participating country was expected to keep track of emissions limits and performance standards, develop spending or fiscal measures, as well their expectation for the next year and results from the previous (E. Canada 2013). When the first reduction timeline was up in 2008, instead of a decrease in emissions, Canada recorded an increase 24.1 percent higher than 1990 levels. The lack of commitment was superseded by the new government’s ‘Made in Canada” effort to push country-unified laws, though no significant changes were

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) aspires to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.” The Paris Agreement, created under the UNFCCC, helps make that goal a reality. Signed by Canada on Earth Day 2016, the agreement “requires all Parties to put forward their best efforts through ‘nationally determined contributions’ (NDCs) and to strengthen these efforts in the years ahead. This includes requirements that all Parties report regularly on their emissions and on their implementation efforts. There will also be a global stocktake every 5 years to assess the collective progress towards achieving the purpose of the agreement and to inform further individual actions by Parties.” As of 5 November 2016, ninety-seven parties out of one hundred ninety-seven have signed the agreement that went into effect on 4 November 2016. Canada’s involvement in the UNFCCC and the Paris agreement is just the tip of the iceberg, and it is quite a contribution to global efforts to reduce climate change.

In 1997, The Kyoto Protocol was adopted to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions (EPA, n.d.). In spite of the international treaty, half of participating nations, including Canada failed to reducing its Co2 emissions (Clark, D., 2012, November 26).

The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty, which enforces the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The treaty does not account for ozone depleting substances since they are covered under the Montreal Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and took effect on 16 February 2005.

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement 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 emissions. This amounts to an average of five per cent over the five-year period 2008-2012.

Following the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol was meant to put a timescale on the project of reducing emissions all the while naming more specific greenhouse gases to be reduced and giving examples of the means to do so. This means that not only will action be required by the countries bound to the protocol, but now they would have a list of specific greenhouse gases to focus upon and also have a list of things that they could do to reduce their emissions. The Kyoto protocol regulates six different kinds of greenhouse gas. These six greenhouse gases are as follows: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) (Kyoto Protocol). The Kyoto Protocol regulates these emissions differently for each individual country. Some countries are required to lower their emissions by as much as eight percent below 1990 levels while others merely have to freeze their emissions at that level. Some countries that emit very little

The climate change impacts of greenhouse gases threaten the economic development and environmental quality. These threats indicate that all nations regardless their economic growth should work collaboratively to reduce the emission to a certain level. Hare et al. (2011) argued that “climate change is a collective action problem” thus requires a global coordination from all countries. This indicates that actions from several countries would never be sufficient to address the climate change problem. If a global target to limit warming to 2°C or below is about to achieve (UNFCCC 2010, p.4) a broad range of participation is required (Hare et al., 2011). However, the increasing complexity of negotiation processes is inevitable. Each country will pursue its own interests during the

“The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits State Parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the premise that (a)

On December 12 of 2015, 195 countries made history by committing to the first truly global international climate change agreement (Paris Agreement, 2015). This agreement took place in Paris and was adopted under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The outcome of the Paris Conference on Climate Change was described as “revolutionary” (Venezuela) “marvelous act” (China) and as “a tremendous collective achievement” (European Union) that introduced a “new era of global climate governance” (Egypt) while “restoring the global community’s faith of accomplishing things multilaterally” (USA) (Paris Agreement, 2015).

“For the time being, however, it is still the flexibility mechanisms that have attracted the most attention… (11).” The “flexibility mechanisms” are the offshore policies of joint implementation, clean development, and emissions trading. As the primary focus of the protocol and creating the biggest impact on international trade, these provisions in the agreement concern international trading of emissions credits.