The A to Z of the Non-Aligned Movement and Third World by Guy Arnold

Author:Guy Arnold [Arnold, Guy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781461672319
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Published: 2013-06-26T04:00:00+00:00

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KYOTO PROTOCOL. The Kyoto Protocol of 1997 was the outcome of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change. After a year of preparatory meetings, signatories of the Framework Convention on Climate Change went to the December 1997 meeting in Kyoto, Japan, still separated by an array of differences. The United States proposed a scheme to base greenhouse gas reductions on a scale known as Global Warming Potential (GWP), which ranked gases according to levels of destructiveness. Further, under a policy known as differentiation, the United States asked for commitments from less developed countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with the proviso that such reductions would be smaller than those of developed nations. This proposal was a response to a plan agreed to at the Rio Earth Summit that set emission targets for developed countries while allowing less developed countries to increase their emissions for several years. The United States believed such a policy would drive industries to relocate to countries with less stringent standards. This suggested differentiation was rejected by China, the European Union (EU), the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), and some environmental groups. The EU offered to cut its greenhouse emissions by 15 percent by 2010 if the United States and Japan did the same. Several discussions were held during 1997 to determine how such a treaty could best be implemented, and this treaty, which was named the Kyoto Protocol, was signed on 11 December 1997. It committed industrialized countries to reduce the emissions of six gases by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

The Kyoto Protocol was open for ratification as of March 1998. But it at once became a source of controversy, and only in October 2004 did Russia ratify the protocol, giving it the necessary 55 ratifying countries that between them accounted for at least 55 percent of global emissions in 1990. Thus the Kyoto Protocol came into effect in mid-February 2005. Unfortunately, the steps by developed countries to cut back their emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) the principal greenhouse gas, are being overtaken by the rising new emissions of the developing nations, led by China and India, which are not parties to the Kyoto Protocol. By 2005 China had become the world’s fifth- or sixth-largest economy. It is growing very rapidly and relies heavily upon fossil fuels to power its growth. (Fossil fuels when burned release CO2.) In 2004, for example, it installed as much new electricity generating capacity as the entire electricity output of Great Britain. India, though well behind China, is rapidly increasing its energy use, and its economy is also growing quickly. It has almost as large a car market as China and has the world’s largest road-building program. Both countries are set to increase their carbon dioxide emissions dramatically for many years. Moreover, since the United States has refused to ratify the treaty, this means that the world’s largest source of greenhouse emissions, the United States, as well

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