Crippling Kyoto and the World

Background

Kyoto Protocol was intended to protect the world environment from the deadly effects of Green House Gases(GHG) emission, which is a byproduct of the industrial revolution and urbanisation. Covered under the umbrella of United Nations Framework Convention On Climate Change. UNFCCC was adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. All parties to the UNFCCC can sign or ratify the Kyoto Protocol, while non-parties to the UNFCCC cannot. This protocol suggested cutting down the GHG emissions to the participating nations. Originally the idea was to cut the emmision of Carbon Dioxide and five other GHG. It was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997, opened for signature on March 16, 1998, and closed on march 15, 1999. The agreement came into force on Feb 16, 2005 following ratification by Russia on Nov 18, 2004.

The agreement had been ratified by 141 countries representing over 61% of global emissions. Countries do not need to sign the protocol in order to ratify it; signing is a symbolic act only.

Objectives

The Protocol is predicted to reduce the average global rise in temperature by somewhere between 0.02°C and 0.28°C by the year 2050 (source: Nature, Oct 2003), compared to the increase of 1.4°C to 5.8°C between 1990 and 2100 predicted by the IPCC. The Protocol reaffirmed the principle that developed countries have to pay, and supply technology to, other countries for climate-related studies and projects. Each Annex I country has agreed to limit emissions to the levels described in the protocol, but many countries have limits that are set above their current production. These "extra amounts" can be purchased by other countries on the open market.Countries also receive credits through various shared "clean energy" programs and "carbon dioxide sinks" in the form of forests and other systems that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change acknowledges the principle of a "common but differentiated responsibilities." This principle recognizes that,

• The largest share of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases has originated in developed countries.
• Per capita emissions in developing countries are still relatively low.
• The share of global emissions originating in developing countries will grow to meet their social and development needs.

In other words, China and other developing countries were exempt from the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol because they were not the main contributors to climate change.

Status

The United States, although a signatory to the protocol, has neither ratified nor withdrawn from the protocol. The protocol is non-binding over the United States unless ratified.On June 25, 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was to be negotiated, the U.S. Senate passed by a 95-0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98), which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States". On Nov 12, 1998, Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the protocol. Aware of the Senate's view of the protocol, the Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol for ratification.The current President, George W. Bush, has indicated that he does not intend to submit the treaty for ratification, not because he does not support the general idea, but because of the strain he believes the treaty would put on the economy; he emphasises the uncertainties he asserts are present in the climate change issue. Furthermore, he is not happy with the details of the treaty.

The prospect of the U.S. staying outside the agreement influenced a number of other countries including Australia, Japan, and Canada to discuss whether they should ratify the agreement, putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage with the U.S. While Japan and Canada ultimately decided to ratify the protocol, Australia's current government has said it will not ratify. Although the major opposition parties have committed to ratification if in a position to do so, Prime Minister Howard was reelected in the 2004 elections, so it seems unlikely that Australia will support the treaty in the near future.

Views

To evaluate the effectiveness of the Kyoto protocol, it is necessary to compare global warming with and without the agreement. Several independent authors agree that the impact of the Kyoto protocol on global warming is likely to be very small. Even some defenders of the Kyoto Protocol agree that the impact of it is small, but they view it as a first step with more political than practical importance, for future reductions, perhaps of up to 70%. The UNEP says the effectiveness of Kyoto really depends on whether it lays a good foundation for the climate convention process, which might lead to greater reductions later.

The two major countries opposed to the treaty are the USA and Australia, based on the public statements of their governments. Some public policy experts who are skeptical of the global warming hypothesis see Kyoto as a scheme to either retard the growth of the world's industrial democracies or to transfer wealth to the third world in what they claim is a global socialism initiative. Some critics say there are problems with the underlying science. For example, Russia's influential Academy of Sciences (RAN) said the government's decision to approve the Kyoto Protocol was "purely political," and that it had "no scientific justification." The Russian experts told president Putin that Kyoto was scientifically unfounded nonsense. Anderai Illarianov, Putin's economic policy advisor, compared the Kyoto Protocol to fascism.

The 1997 Leipzig Declaration called the Kyoto Protocol "dangerously simplistic, quite ineffective, and economically destructive to jobs and standards-of-living". However, most of the signers of the Leipzig Declaration were non-scientists or lacked credentials in the specific field of climate research. Some argue that the protocol does not go far enough to curb greenhouse emissions and the standards it sets would be ineffective at curbing or slowing climate change. Beyond other arguments some theorists predict that even if the world's leading industrial nations agree to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions as mandated by the Kyoto Protocol, it is likely that there would be no net change in emissions worldwide. If the industrialized countries cut their demand for fossil fuels to meet the emission reduction responsibilties, the law of supply and demand would tend to cause the world prices of coal, oil and gas go down, making fuel use more affordable for poorer nations. These theorists predict increased fuel use (primarily coal) in the "non-Annex I" countries, tending to offset the reductions of the "Annex I" countries.

Conclusion

The views in favour of the protocol and those against it hold strong grounds. But what we should be looking forword is towards a fair asessment of the implications of a world without the protocol and a world with it. The approach needs to be wholistic. If the major industrailised nations like the US and Australia choose to stay outside the realms of this protocol, other nations need to come back to the table and rethink. It would not take the world anywhere by merely creating issues out of Kyoto. A serious assesment of the global warming hypothesis need to be undertaken by a multinational body comprising of experts from all the geographies. The recommendations then need to be incorporated in practical solutions and roadmap drawn. The solution need to be binding not in the spirit of dictatorship but in the spirits of a combined effort towards healthy future. Not all nations ae going to be on the same platform from financial perspective. A balance of effects need to be created by supporting traeties covering all the areas influenced by Kyoto. The solution is definately not easy but initiatives need to be taken as the object under stake is our planet. The protocol is a sincere initiative which need to be nutured in a right direction.

Find more about Kyoto Protocol : http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html