Forgot Password?
Written by Suzanne Heibel   
Share |
Tuesday, 06 January 2009

Kyoto Protocol 101

Striving for carbon neutrality is an ongoing international battle whose importance is shown though its ubiquitous media coverage. Nonetheless, gaining this enhanced public knowledge system has been and continues to be an arduous road. While global warming has become the popular quagmire of the late 20th and early 21st century, the beginning came over 30 years ago. Cooperative global environmental action has spawned a list of worldwide treaties and agreements that seek to put a lid on emissions once and for all. This article will provide you with the basics on these agreements and focuses on the Kyoto Protocol.

UN Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm (1972)

In 1972 the United Nations (UN) decided enough was enough, the world must act as one and account for the fact that the Earth is a shared resource that affects and is affected by all. Representatives from 114 out of the 132 countries who were a part of the UN at this time showed up and almost unanimously agreed that yes, all nations had an impact on the global community. Climate change, pollution, biodiversity, and human population growth were discussed and a set of national obligations were negotiated and agreed upon. Stockholm was seen by many as an absolute success because it accomplished its goal to have the diverse peoples of the world see themselves as one species, and one solid influence on the world. The most amazing aspect was that no science was involved in convincing these nations that this was so.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

1989 marked an important year or at least an important first step to thinking about the environment first. The United Nations began blueprinting its framework through a convention that aimed to "protect the climate system for present and future generations." In 1992, the UN took their document to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to be negotiated and 172 government representatives attended. As of August 2007, 192 countries have ratified the UNFCCC.2 Although the UNFCCC projected a multitude of sustainability-promoting measures, these ratified lists of green “how-to’s” added up to being merely suggestions, as they were not binding agreements with consequences for failing to follow the measures.3 Post-UNFCCC, larger and more productive agreements have been ratified, but the crucial aspect of the Rio Earth Summit was that it reopened the door to examining mankind's responsibility to clean up its act and its emissions as well as attract nearly 10,000 reporters to feed these important doctrines and images back into the public media.4

The Kyoto Protocol

After the lukewarm accomplishments of the Rio Earth Summit, the United Nations found a glimmer of possible achievement in the Kyoto Protocol. In 1997 the world once again united, this time in Kyoto, Japan, to talk about the buzz behind global warming, scientifically examine the roots of its cause, and how to appropriately and once and for all stop polluters from emitting. The UN wanted to work as a worldwide force to solve this problem and not discourage nations from attending by pointing fingers. After seven years of arbitration, the Protocol was commissioned in 2005 by 141 countries, to date 183 nations have signed.5 The ambition: reduce green house gas emissions by 5% below the 1990 levels.

What's So Great About Kyoto?

Like the earth summit and the Stockholm meeting before, Kyoto at first appears to mirror the forces previously attempted by the UN. But this protocol was more significant than the others. First, unlike the UNFCCC, those who signed the Kyoto Protocol are held accountable for their actions; suggestions are out the window, these reductions are for real. And the goal of five percent below 1990 seems austere, but it would ultimately mean that emissions are reduced 29% below projected 2010 levels.6 This time around there is also a comprehensive plan, not just a “hey lets do it,” rather a “hey, there are they ways we can and will actualize this feat.”

Kyoto has three market-based tools for lowering pollutants. First, it encourages a global system of emissions trading. Thus, if one country has exceeded its legal limit, then it can buy rights to emit from nations who are below the allowed green house gas emission levels.7 To learn more, see the Greeniacs articles on Carbon Offsets and Cap and Trades: http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsArticles/Carbon-Offsets-How-Do-They-Work.html, http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsArticles/Capping-Trading-and-Selling-the-Right-to-Emit.html. Second, the Kyoto Protocol utilizes the Clean Development Mechanism, which allows countries to invest in or build a pollution-reduction project in a developing nation, such as putting up solar panels instead of electrical lines.8 Kyoto gets a standing ovation by experts for this one because it is an investment that aids the future of green technology. The last mechanism employed by Kyoto is Joint Implementation, which means that—like clean development—developed nations can do carbon removal projects in other countries to reduce their own emissions. This could include increasing the amount of carbon sinks or creation of a project that would cut pollution at the source (such as a clean coal project). The idea is for the global atmospheric carbon level to go down while advancements in clean energy go up.9

Copenhagen 2009

The next international climate conference is scheduled for November 2009 in Copenhagen. The United Nations hopes to renew the vows taken by Kyoto by creating and ratifying a new climate plan that will replace Kyoto.10 Kyoto expires in 2012 and the UN wants to keep the global environmental preservation momentum going far beyond then. To see what Copenhagen has to offer you can visit its official website at: http://www.cop15.dk/en/Frontpage.htm. Hopefully, this next worldwide affair will show more successful than Kyoto, continuing the United Nation's ever improving trend.

Browse all Greeniacs Articles Browse all Greeniacs Guides        Browse all Greeniacs Articles
_______________________________________________________________________________

1 http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=97&ArticleID=1503;  http://www.bookrags.com/research/united-nations-conference-on-the-hu-enve-02/.
2 http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/status_of_ratification/items/2631.php;  http://www.climatechange.gov.au/international/unfccc.html.
3 http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/background/items/1349.php (Under the Principles Article 3, it states that “the Parties shall be guided…”); http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/25b/index-ec.html.
4 http://www.un.org/geninfo/bp/enviro.html.
5 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27318-2005Feb15.html; http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php.
6 http://www.kyotoprotocol.com/.
7 http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/mechanisms/emissions_trading/items/2731.php.
8 http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/mechanisms/clean_development_mechanism/items/2718.php.
9 http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/mechanisms/joint_implementation/items/1674.php.
10 http://www.ambbeograd.um.dk/en/menu/InfoDenmark/UNClimateChangeConferenceInCopenhagen2009/.




Add your comment
RSS comments

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Click here to Register.  Click here to login.
Last Updated ( Thursday, 10 February 2011 )

SEARCH GREENIACS.COM

Green Facts

  • Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.

  • Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.

  • A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.

  • Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.

  • Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.

  • It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.

  • Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.

  • Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.

  • Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.

  • American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.

  • 82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.

  • Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

  • Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.

  • Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.

  • Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.

  • You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.

  • The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.

  • Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.

  • An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!

  • Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.

  • Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.

  • You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.

  • 77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.

  • States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.

  • One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.

  • For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.

  • A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.

  • Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.

  • If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.

  • Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

  • You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.

  • Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.

  • In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.

  • Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.

  • A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

  • A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.

  • In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.

  • Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months

  • Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.