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Kyoto Protocol factfile
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  • PARIS (AFP) Nov 18, 2004
    The Kyoto Protocol, the UN's long-troubled pact for combatting global warming, can finally take effect in just under three months after Russian officials handed over the legal instruments declaring Moscow had ratifed the treaty.

    Bedevilled for years by bitter negotiations and a US walkout, it means Kyoto will now take effect from February 16, 2005.

    Here is a factfile on the treaty:


    WHAT IS IT? The Kyoto Protocol is the world's most ambitious and complex environmental accord. It legally commits industrialised countries to trimming output of six "greenhouse" gases which trap the Sun's heat, gradually warming the Earth's surface and changing its delicately-balanced climate system.


    WHY WAS IT CREATED? The protocol can be traced to early scientific evidence in the 1970s and 80s about the peril of man-made global warming. Its framework was adopted on December 12 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, by 159 countries that are members of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). But it took almost four more years of negotiations to complete its rulebook.


    WHICH ARE THE CULPRIT GASES? The biggest villain is carbon dioxide, the byproduct of burning oil, gas and coal. The others are methane (mostly the result of agriculture), nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulphur hexafluoride.


    WHICH COUNTRIES HAVE TO MAKE CUTS? Thirty-six western and Eastern European industrialised countries, which have to meet individual targets of reducing or stabilising output of greenhouse gas emissions by a timetable of 2008-12 as compared with their 1990 level. The United States walked away from Kyoto in 2001 and Australia says it will not ratify it. Developing countries are encouraged to reduce their pollution but do not have to meet specific targets.


    HOW DEEP ARE THE CUTS? As agreed in 1997, individual goals were six percent for Japan; eight percent for the European Union (EU); and zero percent for Russia. Within the EU, the targeted cuts are 21 percent for Germany, 12.5 percent for Britain, 6.5 percent for Italy and zero percent for France, although Spain can increase output by 15 percent. Before it abandoned Kyoto, the United States was committed to a reduction of seven percent.


    HOW CAN COUNTRIES MEET THEIR TARGETS? Any way they choose. They can use command-and-control measures such as taxes, fuel efficiency laws or awareness campaigns. But fossil fuels, the biggest source of global warming, are also today's prime energy source, and thus curbing their use carries an economic cost. So Kyoto includes three incentive mechanisms, including a future market in carbon emissions, to ease the bill.


    WHY IS RUSSIAN RATIFICATION SO IMPORTANT? Kyoto can only only take effect after ratification by 55 countries accounting for at least 55 percent of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by developed nations as at 1990 levels. After the decision by the United States (36 percent of 1990 emissions) to quit Kyoto in 2001, the onus fell on Russia (17.4 percent of emissions) to push the treaty over the threshold.


    WILL KYOTO WORK? A good question, given the absence of the biggest CO2 polluter (the United States) and Kyoto's notorious complexity and untested mechanisms. In its original form, the deal targeted an overall cut by 38 countries of at least 5.2 percent by 2012 compared with 1990 levels. If all the 36 remaining countries meet their targets, and if concessions made to bring the treaty to fruition are factored in, the cut will be in the order of only two or three percent.


    WHAT IS THE NEXT STEP? Scientists say that reductions of around 60 percent are urgently needed to avoid wreaking potentially catastrophic damage to the world's economies. The present so-called commitment period under Kyoto runs out in 2012.Negotiations begin next year on the second committment period after 2012, and countries will be under pressure to make far deeper cuts, include China and India in targeted reductions and coax the United States back into the multilateral fold.




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