Powerful industrial lobby groups are attempting to undermine ratification and implementation of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which committed industrialized nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Several of these industry groups will be represented during top level talks under the Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bonn from Oct 26 to Nov 4. At this meeting more details of the Kyoto Protocol will be negotiated. (The Kyoto Protocol was agreed by more than 160 nations in Japan in 1997, it established legally binding greenhouse gas reduction targets for each industrialized nation, with an overall reduction of -5.2% by 2008-2012).
The most controversial agenda topic at the negotiations (formally known as the fifth 'Conference of the Parties' - COP5) is the detail of how the Kyoto Protocol's so-called 'flexibility mechanisms' will work: carbon trading, joint implementation (JI) and the clean development mechanism (CDM). These are tools that aim to start an international market in buying and selling carbon reductions, and could allow industrialized nations to implement projects to reduce emissions in developing countries and claim credit for doing so. Countries have said they will reach agreement on the details of how these, and other topics, will work by the sixth COP in late 2000.
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