walrus on iceflow
The road to Kyoto stretches back to the mid-1980s when increasing scientific evidence of human interference with the climate and growing public concern over environmental issues began to push climate change onto the political agenda.
Recognising the need for authoritative scientific information the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988 and in 1990 the IPCC published it First Assessment Report. The report confirmed that climate change was indeed a threat and called for a global treaty to address the problem.
In response the UN General Assembly launched negotiations on a framework convention on climate change and in 1992 the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was opened for signature at the Rio Earth Summit. The Convention entered into force on 21 March 1994 and to date has been ratified by 181 countries.
The Convention sets an ultimate objective of stabilising greenhouse gas emissions at safe levels, although these levels are not quantified. To achieve this objective, all countries have a general commitment to address climate change, adapt to its effects and report on the action they are taking to implement the Convention.
Countries are divided into two groups. Annex 1 countries are the industrialised countries who have historically contributed to the most to climate change (the OECD and Russia and several other Central and Eastern European countries). Under the Convention, Annex 1 countries committed to the non-legally binding aim of returning their greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000.
Non-Annex 1 Parties, basically, the developing countries, report in general terms on their actions to address climate change and adapt to its effects.
At the first Conference of the Parties (COP) in Berlin in 1995 it was decided that the specific commitments for Annex 1 countries were inadequate and a new round of talks to decide on more detailed commitments for these countries was launched. After two and half years of intense negotiations, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted on 11th December 1997.
In spite of increasing scientific evidence that showing climate change to be an urgent problem requiring drastic cuts in greenhouse gases, political expediency and intense lobbying by the fossil fuel industry, reduced the final agreement at Kyoto to a 5.2% cut in greenhouse gases below 1990 levels. Far short of the 60-80% cuts that will be required to solve the problem.
It is, however, the first step on the long road to climate protection. An environmentally effective Kyoto Protocol will, once ratified, provide a framework for the international community to agree the rapid, deep cuts necessary to stabilise and eventually reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
