Q.) Discuss “Kyoto Protocol”.

Explain CDM and has “Kyoto

Protocol” been discarded at Copenhagen summit?

Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on

Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC), aimed at combating global warming. The
UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty with the goal of achieving
"stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that
would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

The Protocol was initially adopted on 11 December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan and
entered into force on 16 February 2005. As of November 2009, 187 states have
signed and ratified the protocol.

The objective is the "stabilization and reconstruction of greenhouse gas

concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous
anthropogenic interference with the climate system." The objective of the Kyoto
climate change conference was to establish a legally binding international
agreement, whereby all the participating nations commit themselves to tackling the
issue of global warming and greenhouse gas emissions. The target agreed upon
was an average reduction of 5.2% from 1990 levels by the year 2012.

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

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The five principal concepts of the Kyoto Protocol are:

• commitments to reduce greenhouse gases that are legally binding for annex I
countries, as well as general commitments for all member countries;
• implementation to meet the Protocol objectives, to prepare policies and
measures which reduce greenhouse gases; increasing absorption of these
gases (for example through geosequestration and biosequestration) and use
all mechanisms available, such as joint implementation, clean development
mechanism and emissions trading; being rewarded with credits which allow
more greenhouse gas emissions at home;
• minimizing impacts on developing countries by establishing an adaptation
fund for climate change;
• accounting, reporting and review to ensure the integrity of the Protocol;
• Compliance by establishing a compliance committee to enforce commitment
to the Protocol.

Clean Development Mechanism

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is an arrangement under the Kyoto

Protocol allowing industrialized countries with a greenhouse gas reduction
commitment (called Annex 1 countries) to invest in ventures that reduce emissions
in developing countries as an alternative to more expensive emission reductions in
their own countries. A crucial feature of an approved CDM carbon project is that it
has established that the planned reductions would not occur without the additional
incentive provided by emission reductions credits, a concept known as
"additionality".

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The CDM allows net global greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced at a much
lower global cost by financing emissions reduction projects in developing
countries where costs are lower than in industrialized countries. However, in recent
years, criticism against the mechanism has increased.

The CDM is supervised by the CDM Executive Board (CDM EB) and is under the
guidance of the Conference of the Parties (COP/MOP) of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

To avoid giving credits to projects that would have happened anyway

("freeriders"), rules have been specified to ensure additionality of the project, that
is, to ensure the project reduces emissions more than would have occurred in the
absence of the project. There are currently two rival interpretations of the
additionality criterion:

1. What is often labelled ‘environmental additionality’ has that a project is

additional if the emissions from the project are lower than the baseline. It
generally looks at what would have happened without the project.
2. In the other interpretation, sometimes termed ‘project additionality’, the
project must not have happened without the CDM.

Has “Kyoto Protocol” been discarded at Copenhagen summit??

Rich nations have abandoned an attempt to kill off the Kyoto protocol in a last-
gasp effort to salvage a deal at the climate change summit in Copenhagen.

Negotiations have been deadlocked for a week as developing countries resisted

efforts to replace or downgrade the 1997 protocol, which places legally binding
commitments on rich – but not poor – nations.

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The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of
individuals known as "the circle of commitment" – but understood to include the
UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was
finalized this week.

The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal

limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in
2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly
twice as much under the proposals.

The agreement, leaked to the Guardian which would have ended Kyoto. The
impasse over the Kyoto protocol stems from its status as the only legally binding
agreement on climate change, requiring industrialized nations – but not developing
nations – to cut their emissions. Rich nations want a fresh treaty, arguing the world
has changed and the major emerging economies such as China and India must
commit to curbing their huge and fast growing national emissions. But the
developing nations argue that rich nations grew wealthy by polluting the
atmosphere and must take primary responsibility for it, which can only be
guaranteed by Kyoto.

In a victory for the developing world, negotiators will now move forward on a two-
track basis, one part of which maintains the integrity of Kyoto.