International action: the Kyoto Protocol, the IPCC and progress so far

Overview

Common but differentiated responsibilities, kyoto Protocol and intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Why does climate change require international action rather than action by individual countries?

   Model answer

   Because greenhouse gases mix throughout the atmosphere, so a tonne emitted anywhere affects everywhere, and no country can protect itself by cutting its own emissions alone. The largest emitter accounts for under a third of the global total, so even complete elimination by one country leaves the problem largely intact. That creates the free-rider problem: each country bears the full cost of its own reductions but receives only a fraction of the benefit, so acting alone is unrewarding and acting only if others do is rational. An agreement is the mechanism by which countries can commit collectively, verify one another's actions and share the burden, which is why the whole history of climate policy is a history of negotiation.

2. 2

   What was agreed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992?

   Model answer

   The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was opened for signature and has since been ratified by almost every country. It is a framework treaty rather than a set of targets: its stated objective is to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that would prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system, and it establishes the principles, the institutions and the reporting obligations within which later, more specific agreements are made. It required countries to compile and submit national inventories of their emissions, established the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, and created the annual Conference of the Parties, the meeting at which subsequent agreements including the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement were negotiated.

3. 3

   What does common but differentiated responsibilities mean, and why is it disputed?

   Model answer

   It is the principle that all countries share responsibility for tackling climate change, but that their obligations should differ according to their historical contribution to the problem and their capacity to act. In practice it meant that industrialised countries, which had emitted most of the carbon dioxide accumulated in the atmosphere and were wealthier, should act first and should help finance action elsewhere, while poorer countries should not be prevented from developing. It is disputed because the world has changed since 1992: several countries then classified as developing are now major emitters and substantial economies, so industrialised countries argue that the categories are out of date, while developing countries reply that cumulative historical emissions, not current annual ones, caused the problem and that per capita emissions remain far lower. The argument has run through every negotiation since.

4. 4

   What was the Kyoto Protocol, and what did it require?

   Model answer

   The Kyoto Protocol was an agreement reached in 1997 at the third Conference of the Parties, which for the first time set legally binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Industrialised countries, listed as Annex I parties, accepted quantified targets for a first commitment period of 2008 to 2012, amounting to an average reduction of 5.2 per cent below their 1990 levels. Individual targets varied: the European Union accepted 8 per cent, the United States 7 per cent and Japan 6 per cent, while a few countries were permitted small increases. It covered six greenhouse gases combined on a carbon dioxide equivalent basis, established rules for measuring and reporting emissions, and allowed countries to meet part of their obligation through market mechanisms rather than domestic reductions alone.

5. 5

   Why did the Kyoto Protocol not come into force until 2005?

   Model answer

   Because it required a double threshold before it could take legal effect: ratification by at least 55 parties, and ratification by enough industrialised countries to account for at least 55 per cent of that group's carbon dioxide emissions in 1990. The first threshold was met easily; the second was not, because the United States, which alone accounted for over a third of Annex I emissions, decided in 2001 not to ratify. That made the participation of Russia arithmetically essential, and Russia delayed while negotiating other matters, ratifying only in late 2004. The Protocol entered into force in February 2005, more than seven years after it was agreed and only three years before the commitment period it governed was due to begin.

6. 6

   What were the Kyoto Protocol's flexibility mechanisms?

   Model answer

   Three arrangements allowing a country to meet part of its target other than by cutting its own emissions at home, on the logic that the atmosphere does not care where a reduction occurs and that the cheapest reductions should be made first. International emissions trading allowed countries with surplus allowances to sell them to countries facing a shortfall. Joint implementation allowed one industrialised country to earn credits by funding an emissions-reducing project in another industrialised country, typically in eastern Europe where the cheap opportunities were. The Clean Development Mechanism allowed an industrialised country to earn credits by funding a project in a developing country, which was intended both to lower the cost of compliance and to channel investment and technology towards countries with no targets of their own.

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