Kyoto & COP15

Intellectual Takeout's new library section on the Kyoto Protocol is up just in time for the next major round of negotiations on the international response to climate change at Bonn on March 29. There will be several more negotiations after Bonn, all leading up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (also known as COP15) on December 7.

COP15 is important because it is the official follow-up to the United Nations' Kyoto negotiations in 1997 that produced the Kyoto Protocol. The protocol mandates the reduction of greenhouse gases worldwide. Its framework was created at the initial negotiations in Kyoto in 1997, but the treaty failed to be ratified until 2004. Its mandates came into effect in 2008. According to the UN, "the Protocol's first commitment period began in 2008 and ends in 2012. A strong multilateral framework needs to be in place by 2009 to ensure that there is no gap between the end of the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period in 2012 and the entry into force of a future regime."

The world can expect vigorous negotiations at COP15 because there is a real sense of urgency to lock down a new agreement, and the dynamics of the international community have changed tremendously since 1997.

To date, 184 countries have signed the Kyoto Protocol.  Individuals and groups who believe that climate change is a crisis will reference that number to say that there is consensus on climate change, and that the world community is in agreement.

As if.

The vast majority of the countries that agreed to the Kyoto Protocol were, in 1997, unaffected by its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction requirements because they were considered to be developing countries, such as Fiji, Samoa, and Nepal. The developed countries that agreed to Kyoto, such as Canada, Germany, and Japan, are affected by the Kyoto Protocol and will have to reduce their collective GHG emissions to less than 1990 levels by 2012.

As pointed out earlier, the international community has changed mightily since 1997. The United States Senate did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and so the US is not required to reduce its GHG emissions. China and India both signed Kyoto, but were considered to be developing countries at the time and are therefore unaffected by the requirements. Russia (without whom the Kyoto Protocol would not have been internationally ratified in 2004) signed, but is also unaffected by the requirements and merely used the agreement to gain a foothold into the World Trade Organization. Finally, the world is watching Germany and other developed countries in Europe as they are, to date, unable to meet the GHG reduction requirements set by Kyoto, and they now find themselves in an untenable position in a competitive world economy.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, revealed just how much things have changed since Kyoto when he laid out his "Four Essentials for Copenhagen" last week:

• How much are the industrialized countries willing to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases?
• How much are major developing countries such as China and India willing to do to limit the growth of their emissions?
• How is the help needed by developing countries to engage in reducing their emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change going to be financed?
• How is that money going to be managed?

While momentum favors the climate-change-is-a-crisis cartel, cracks in its once seemingly impenetrable facade are beginning to show. The Kyoto Protocol and, potentially, the Copenhagen agreement both depend on the belief that science has proven that the globe is exponentially heating, man is to blame, and the consequences are dire. The reality is that the "crisis-science" is not holding up to peer-led reviews and word is getting out to the public on the lack of consensus. Fiscal realities are also setting in as the world watches European countries fail to meet the GHG reduction goals while still paying a steep cost for their attempts during a global economic slump.

The truth of the matter is that climate is changing and will always be changing. It is up to our generation to convince the world that adaptation through technological advancements in a free society is a better way forward than crippling our economies in order to prevent a could-be crisis based on questionable scientific models.

To learn more about the failure of the Kyoto Protocol and the cracks in the crisis-science argument, visit the library.