The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the UNFCCC aimed at fighting global warming. It commits industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The major distinction between the Protocol and the Convention is that the Convention encouraged emissions reductions while the Protocol commits countries to do so. The Protocol was negotiated in 1997 and entered into force in 2005 after Russia ratified it. It sets emissions reduction targets for 37 Annex I countries and allows flexible mechanisms like emissions trading to lower costs of achieving targets.

1. KYOTO PROTOCOL
Presented by :
ANUJ KUMAR

2. What is kyoto protocol?
• The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol linked to the
United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC), aimed at
fighting global warming.
• The UNFCCC is an international environmental
treaty with the goal of achieving the
"stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations
in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent
dangerous anthropogenic interference with the
climate system."

3. UNFCCC VS KYOTO PROTOCOL
• The major distinction between the Protocol
and the Convention is that while the
Convention encouraged industrialised
countries to stabilize GHG emissions, the
Protocol commits them to do so.

4. background
• The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in Kyoto,
Japan, in December 1997.
• It was opened for signature on March 16, 1998,
and closed a year later.
• Ratifying countries had to represent at least 55
percent of the world’s total carbon dioxide
emissions for 1990.
• The first condition was met on May 23, 2002,
when Iceland became the 55th country to ratify
the Kyoto Protocol.

5. • When Russia ratified the agreement in
November 2004, Kyoto Protocol entered into
force on February 16, 2005.
• As a U.S. presidential candidate, George W.
Bush promised to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions.

6. • As of April 2010, 191 states have signed and
ratified the protocol.
• Those states are :
China Maldives
Sri lanka Malaysia
Poland New Zealand
South Korea and many other countries

7. • Under the Protocol, 37 countries, the "Annex I
countries" (Australia, Austria, Canada,
Finland, Germany, United Kingdom, United
States of America etc.) commit themselves to
a reduction of four greenhouse gases (carbon
dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur
hexafluoride) and two groups of gases
(hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons)
produced by them, and all member countries
give general commitments.

8. • Annex I countries agreed to reduce their
collective greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2%
from the 1990 level (but note that, compared
to the emissions levels that would be
expected by 2010 without the Protocol, this
target represents a 29% cut)
• National targets range from 8% reductions for
the European Union and some others to 7%
for the US, 6% for Japan and permitted
increases of 8% for Australia and 10% for
Iceland.

9. • Since the goal of the Kyoto Protocol is to reduce
worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, it sets
specific emissions reduction targets for each
industrialized nation, but excludes developing
countries.
• To meet their targets, most ratifying nations
would have to combine several strategies:
1. place restrictions on their biggest polluters.
2. manage transportation to slow or reduce
emissions from automobiles.
3. make better use of renewable energy
sources—such as solar power, wind power,
and biodiesel—in place of fossil fuels.

10. Mechanisms under kyoto protocol
• Flexible mechanisms, also sometimes knows
as Flexibility Mechanisms or Kyoto
Mechanisms, refers to Emissions Trading, the
Clean Development Mechanism and Joint
Implementation.
• These are mechanisms defined under the
Kyoto Protocol intended to lower the overall
costs of achieving its emissions targets.

11. • These mechanisms enable parties to achieve
emission reductions or to remove carbon from
the atmosphere cost-effectively in other
countries.
• While the cost of limiting emissions varies
considerably from region to region, the
benefit for the atmosphere is in principle the
same, wherever the action is taken.

12. • The Emissions Trading-mechanism allows
parties to the Kyoto-protocol to buy
greenhouse gas emission permits from other
countries to help meet their domestic emission
reduction targets.
• Through the Joint Implementation,
industrialised countries with a greenhouse gas
reduction commitment of Annex 1 countries
may fund emission reducing projects in other
industrialised countries as an alternative to
emission reductions in their own countries.

13. • The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is
an arrangement under the Kyoto Protocol
allowing industrialised countries with a
greenhouse gas reduction commitment of
Annex 1 countries to invest in projects that
reduce emissions in developing countries.
• 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 industrialised countries.

14. Current status?
• Most of the world’s industrialized nations
support the Kyoto Protocol.
• Australia also declined in the emissions of
those gases.
• One notable exception is the United States,
which releases more greenhouse gases than
any other nation and accounts for more than
25 percent of those generated by humans
worldwide.

15. Post- Kyoto Protocol
• It refer to high level talks attempting to
address global warming by limiting greenhouse
gas emissions.
• Generally part of the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), these
talks concern the period after the first
"commitment period" of the Kyoto Protocol,
which expired at the end of 2012. Negotiations
have been mandated by the adoption of the Bali
Road Map and Decision 1/CP.13 ("The Bali Action
Plan").

16. • UNFCCC negotiations are conducted within two
subsidiary bodies, the Ad Hoc Working Group on
Long-term Cooperative Action under the
Convention (AWG-LCA) and the Ad Hoc Working
Group on Further Commitments for Annex I
Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP).
• The United Nations Climate Change Conference
take place in December 2009 in Copenhagen
(COP-15); negotiations are supported by a
number of external processes, including the G8
process, a number of regional meetings and the
Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate
that was launched by US President Barack
Obama in March 2009.

17. • On February 16, 2007, The Global Legislators
Organisation (GLOBE International) held a
meeting of the G8+5 Climate Change Dialogue at
the GLOBE Washington Legislators Forum
in Washington, D.C.
• Where a non-binding agreement was reached to
co-operate on tackling global warming.
• The group accepted that the existence of man-made
climate change was beyond doubt and
there should be a global system of emission caps
and carbon emissions trading applying to
both industrialized nations and developing
countries.

18. • The leaders at the 33rd G8 summit issued a non-binding
communiqué announcing that the G8
nations would "aim to at least halve
global CO2 emissions by 2050".
• In 2007 UN General Assembly plenary debate on
climate change that include adaptation,
mitigation, clean technologies, deforestation.
• In 2007 Vienna Climate Change Talks and
agreement.
• In 2007 United Nations Climate Change
Conference held in Bali, where a meeting of
environment ministers and experts held to agree-

19. on a road-map, timetable and "concrete steps for the
negotiations" with a view to reaching an agreement.
• September 2009 United Nations Secretary General's
Summit on Climate Change to which Heads of State
and Government have been invited. This event was
intended to build further political momentum for an
ambitious Copenhagen agreed outcome to be adopted
at COP-15.
• In 2011, 2012, 2013 United Nations Climate Change
Conference.
• At 23rd September 2014, the UN Climate Summit 2014
was held. India, Russia, Canada and Australia did not
attend the meeting. 125 other countries did attend.
The beginning of the private investors and large
companies now withdrawing from polluting industries,
at a time when the political motivation for reducing
GHG emissions is starting to stall.

20. PRE- KYOTO PROTOCOL
• A 2007 study by Gupta et al. assessed the
literature on climate change policy which showed
no authoritative assessments of the UNFCCC or
its Protocol, that assert these agreements have,
or will, succeed in fully solving the climate
problem.
• It was assumed that the UNFCCC or its Protocol
would not be changed. The Framework
Convention and its Protocol, include provisions
for future policy actions to be taken.

21. Commentaries on negotiations
Party Target level and
date
Gas (es) covered Date proposed
Brazil 30% by 2020 CO₂, CH₄, N₂O 28 May 1197
Canada 3% by 2010,
additional 5% by
2015
All GHGs 2 December 1997
Czech Republic 5% by 2005, 15% by
2010
CO₂, CH₄, N₂O 27 March 1997
UK 5-10% by 2010 All GHGs 16 April 1996
Japan 5% by 2008-2012 CO₂, CH₄, N₂O 6th October 1997
New Zealand 5% in a 5yr period CO₂, CH₄, N₂O 2 December 1997
Switzerland 10% by 2010 All GHGs 29 November 1996

22. • The choice of 1990 as the main base year remains
in Kyoto, as it does in the original Framework
Convention (UNFCCC). The importance of the
choice of base year was discussed by Liverman
(2008).
• According to Liverman (2008), the idea of using
historical emissions as a basis for the Kyoto
targets was rejected on the basis that good data
was not available prior to 1990.
• Liverman (2008) commented that a 1990 base
year favours several powerful interests including
the UK, Germany and Russia. This is because
these countries had high CO₂ emissions in 1990.

23. • "In the UK following 1990, emissions had
declined because of a switch from coal to gas
("Dash for Gas"), which has lower emissions
than coal.
• According to Liverman (2008), some of the
former Soviet satellites wanted a base year to
reflect their highest emissions prior to their
industrial collapse.
• A high emissions baseline was an advantage
for countries whose emissions had
subsequently fallen due to economic collapse.

24. • Liverman (2008) argued that countries, such
as the US, made suggestions during
negotiations in order to lower their
responsibility to cut emissions.
• These suggestions included the inclusion of
carbon sinks (the carbon absorbed annually by
forests and other land cover) and having net
current emissions as the basis for
responsibility, rather than historical emissions.

25. CRITICISM
• Some argue the protocol does not go far enough
to curb greenhouse emissions.
• Some environmental economists have been
critical of the Kyoto Protocol.
• Many see the costs of the Kyoto Protocol as
outweighing the benefits, some believing the
standards which Kyoto sets to be too optimistic.
• Others seeing a highly inequitable and inefficient
agreement which would do little to curb
greenhouse gas emissions.

26. • Stavins (2005) criticized the Protocol as doing
"too little, too fast," in that it asks for excessively
costly short-term reductions in emissions,
without determining what should be done over
longer timeframes.
• The Protocol does not provide any guidance or
formulae linking the action required in the first
commitment period to an overall global quantity
constraint on emissions, or to a long-term
timetable for emissions reductions.

27. CONCLUSION
• A comprehensive emissions reduction strategy
must set a long-term goal for atmospheric
concentrations of CO2, combining International
Protocols with efficiency initiatives, financial
markets intervention (Cap & Trade) and
engineering ingenuity if it is to work.
• The impacts of climate change are not evenly
distributed – the poorest countries and people
will suffer earliest and most. And if the damages
appear it will be too late to reverse the process.

28. Thank You
T