Kyoto - Take 1

The World Tries to Tackle Climate Change Together...Mostly

The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997 and represents the first global attempt to implement emissions reduction targets for the purpose of addressing global climate change. For context, this was after the first and second assessment reports from the IPCC. (1990 and 1995, respectively. The first report was instrumental in creating the UNFCCC.) It established binding emission targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European Union. The Kyoto Protocol did not establish binding reduction targets for developing countries. Collectively, the targets represent a 5% reduction in greenhouse gas levels between 2008-2012 relative to 1990 as a baseline. The detailed rules for its implementation were finalized in 2001.

How does the treaty work?

Note that the Kyoto treaty is no longer in effect.  But it is useful and prudent to learn about its key elements, as many of these approaches are still being used. Most of a country's required reductions must occur internally via measures such as renewable energy and energy efficiency. However, there were several additional measures that enabled Kyoto signatory countries to meet their targets. These additional measures were designed to offer countries with compliance obligations a certain degree of flexibility in how they achieve their reductions, so as to help contain costs and encourage emission reduction projects worldwide. Note that some of these methods are used in many, if not most, international climate goals.

1. Emissions trading - countries that reduce their emissions by more than their established target are able to sell their surplus reductions on the carbon market. 
    
2. Clean development mechanism (CDM) - allows countries with emission limitation commitments to implement emission reduction projects in other countries. These projects earn credits (one credit per metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent), which can then be sold on the carbon market and counted toward Kyoto compliance. CDM places a strong emphasis on sustainable development in conjunction with emission reductions and gives industrialized countries the opportunity to reduce emissions at a lower cost externally rather than generating all of their reductions within their own borders. CDM projects are subject to a strict verification and quantification process to ensure that the reductions for which someone earns credit are real, additional, and verifiable. Check out the CDM Rulebook to learn more about the verification process for CDM projects.
    
3. Joint implementation (JI) - allows countries under Kyoto commitments to achieve their emission reductions from projects in other countries also subject to emission reduction commitments under the Protocol.

A common element of items 1 through 3 above is that it recognizes that we are all under the same atmosphere, and regardless of where actions occur, it contributes to the carbon balance worldwide. 

The United States and the Kyoto Protocol

While the United States participated in the discussions and development of the Protocol and became a signatory nation, we have never formally ratified it and therefore did not participate in reducing emissions by our assigned 7% below the 1990 baseline. This does not mean the US did not reduce emissions during that period, nor does it mean countries that did participate actually met their emissions goals. 

• What went wrong? The Clinton Administration never submitted the Protocol to the Senate because of one dealbreaker - the lack of commitment to binding reductions for developing countries. Later, the Bush administration rejected the protocol. And while the United States did sign initially, because it was never ratified domestically, the targets are non-binding. In the years since the US backed away from the Kyoto Protocol, it continued to send delegates to the UNFCCC annual meetings but not to participate in conversations related to the Protocol implementation itself. The Bush Administration did develop a parallel “global” alternative to Kyoto called the Asia Pacific Partnership (See below).  The idea of the APP was to engage several of the nations who exempted from the Kyoto requirements.  In other words, APP attempted to address the key reason the US did not ratify the Kyoto treaty.
   
• Big pieces of the pie: In order for the Protocol to go into effect, countries representing at least 55% of the 1990 level emissions needed to ratify. As you can imagine, this was challenging without the United States' participation (representing a full 25% of global emissions at that time). However, in 2004, with Russia's ratification, the Protocol was set in motion. Here's a BBC article from February 2005, just after that 55% threshold was met, and the Protocol went into effect. The article provides a time capsule of what our global thinking was around international climate change action at that time.