Information on
Climatic Change |
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The Protocol of Kyoto and the industrial revolution
By Klaus Töepfer, executive director of the Program of the Nations United for the Environment (PNUMA) |
When the historians review the process of industrial transformation of principles of century XXI, the take effect of the Protocol of Kyoto will appear a little while like distinctive. The skeptics argue that the Protocol imposes expensive and unnecessary commitments and that will prevent the economic progress. Nothing could be remoter of the reality. In fact, the Protocol will reinforce existing the economic and industrial tendencies.
If he requested himself to describe the world to us in the middle of century XXI, who would imagine factories dismissing polluting agents? Who would suppose the image of a car that used an excessive amount of fuel? Who would describe economies based on the sobreoperation of nonrenewable natural resources?
The most probable scene is a world where the competition and the technological progress have improved of spectacular way the efficiency industrial and promoted the cleanest production and the reduction to the minimum of the wastes. The Protocol will accelerate the arrival of this world-wide economy by means of the shipment of an early signal to the producers and to the consumers, doing to them to know that the brake to the gas discharges that cause the effect conservatory will be compensated financially.
The Protocol will not go against the current, but that will open a door. But first of all, the formuladores of today policies must honestly confront the conflict between the short term, the defensive preoccupations of certain economic sectors and the amplest economic and environmental interests of the society as a whole.
It is certain, will be losers in the market, the same measurement in which there will be winners. But, for the humanity as a whole, enormous economic and technological benefits will be to our reach. This optimistic panorama leans in the vast bibliography on technology and economy evaluated by the Intergubernamental Group de Expertos on Cambio Clima'tico (IPCC), the one that is sponsored in joint form by the Program of the Nations United for the Medio.ambiente (Pnuma) and World-wide the Meteorological Organization (OMM).
Investigators of forward edge confirm that designed the governmental policies good, oriented towards the market, can reduce the gas discharges that cause the effect conservatory and, at the same time, to generate benefits economic. These benefits include power systems more cash with respect to their costs, greater technological innovation, smaller expenses in unsuitable subsidies and more efficient markets. The cut of the emissions will also diminish the damages generated by these expensive problems, like the effects of the environmental contamination on the health.
The constructive participation of the companies in the reach of the objectives fixed by the Protocol of Kyoto for the emissions will be vital. Some of the first companies in responding positively to the challenge of the climatic change have been insuring, that are vulnerable to the impacts caused by the climatic change, and the producers of clean energy, that clear opportunities at the market see.
But virtually all the enterprise sectors have their part in the active participation. Luckyly, many companies have been foresighted and are anticipating the necessity to reduce to emissions, establishing their own goals of amplitude of the emissions when investing in products, productive services and processes that do not damage the medio.ambiente.
Meanwhile, many local governments have adopted their own policies of climatic change, often with ambitions still greater than those of their national governments. The local authorities of the cities have a critical importance, dice their paper in the handling of the energy companies, public transport and other producing activities of emissions in the public sector. Other components of the civil society, including the schools, communitarian groups, the mass media, the families and the consumers, also play a role crucial.
By means of the moral persuasion, the education, the rational change of habits and purchases and investments, the individuals can create a real difference. Activity daily of people, where it wants that it is, emits gases that cause the effect conservatory in their daily life, and the cumulative effect of small changes in its decisions can be enormous.
The active commitment of vast segments of the society in the promotion of the goals of the PK will significantly accelerate the transition towards more efficient societies power, technologically innovating and with a sustainable medio.ambiente. The industrial economies already have faced such challenges, from the financial disorder and the globalización of the markets to the technological revolutions and even the sequels of the war; every time, they adapted and they prospered. There is no reason so that these innovating and dynamic societies cannot in the same way face valentía the challenge of the climatic change. |
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| GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE |
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The climatic change has been a reality throughout all the history of our planet, but to now never it had reached a rate like the present one, nor had been consequence of human interferences. We are before a very complex problem that, if it is not approached, can repel negatively in all the spheres of the life. However, the interchanges between the climate and the gas discharges of effect conservatory produced by the man do not occupy the first plane of the world-wide attention. It is not to be strange, since to approach the subject of the climatic change it is necessary to create delicate problems and scientific concepts, political and economic. But the manifestation of this phenomenon in extreme climatic episodes, like the floods and the droughts, has created the urgent necessity to include/understand and to approach the problem. The climatic change and its devastating effects need, therefore, constant and urgent attention, properly endorsed by an ample conception of which they imply the necessary mechanisms for it, one signs political will and the advances of science.
The Convention Frame of the Nations United on the Climatic Change took effect in 1994. The Protocol of Kyoto, in that more specific commitments settle down binding, in 1997. The Convention enjoys almost universal adhesion —clara test of the political will demonstrated by the governments worldwide to face the problem of the climatic change. The Convention is being applied by means of a intergovernmental process, in other words, is a platform on which the countries can combine their forces to stabilize the world-wide climate. The take effect of the Protocol of Kyoto could take place at any time.
In the ten years passed from the take effect of the Convention negotiations have stayed, in individual about the Protocol of Kyoto, in different places worldwide, from Buenos Aires to Marrakech. The heap of norms necessary to make reality the dispositions of the Convention and the Protocol already is practically completed, and now the attention will be centered more and more in its application, without forgetting the future necessities.
With the present guide it is tried to offer a panorama of the evolution of the Convention and the Protocol in simple language. A general vision also appears on the commitments that have assumed the countries.
Only with the support of the world-wide community we can translate these agreements in concrete actions, of international reach, national and local, with the purpose of avoiding and effectively resisting the resulting effects of a destabilized world-wide climate.
Joke Waller-Hunter
Executive Secretary, CMNUCC
Bonn, April of 2004. |
| Introduction |
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The world-wide climate has always evolved of natural form. The scientists create, however, who now we are attending a new type of climatic change. Their effects in the population and the ecosystems are going to be drastic. The dioxide levels of carbon and other "gases of effect conservatory" in the atmosphere have raised vertiginously from the industrial revolution. The concentrations have increased mainly by the fossil fuel use, the deforestation and other human activities, impelled by the economic and demographic growth. The effect gases conservatory, like a blanket that surrounded all the planet, prevent that the energy saves of the terrestrial surface and the atmosphere (it see the page of alongside). If the levels promote too much, an excessive heating can upset the natural guidelines of the climate.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed, in his third report of evaluation, who "exists new tests and more convincing of than most of the heating observed during last the 50 years it is possible to be attributed to human activities". Although the uncertainties that surround to the projection of the future tendencies create ample margins of error in the estimations, the IPCC anticipated an increase of 1.4 in 5,8°C in the average skin temperatures of our planet during next the 100 years. The effects of the heating, even in the inferior ends of that band, will be probably dramatic (it see picture infra). The repercussions in the human beings will be inevitable and —en some lugares— extreme.
The population of some zones can see itself benefitted with the climatic change. But they are many plus the cases in that one will be affected negatively. The countries developing will suffer more than the others, since its lack of resources makes specially vulnerable to the adversity or the emergencies of scale.
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| Effect Greenhouse |
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Main Gases of effect Greenhouse
The Convention makes reference to all gases of effect conservatory not including in the Protocol of Montreal of 1987 of the Convention of the Nations United for the Protection of Capa de Ozono. However, in the Protocol of Kyoto on the six following ones is insisted:
• Carbon dioxide (CO2)
• Methane (CH4)
• Nitrous oxide (NÃ')
• Hidrofluorocarbonos (HFC)
• Perfluorocarbonos (PFC)
• Hexafluoruro of sulfur (SF6)
Esteem that the three first explain the 50, the 18 and 6 percent, respectively, of the global effect of world-wide heating derived from human activities. HFC and PFC are used like substitute products of the substances that exhaust the ozone layer, like the clorofluorocarbonos (CFC), that are being eliminated gradually by virtue of the Protocol of Montreal. |
| Antecedents |
The Beginnings
The first tests of human interference in the climate appeared in 1979 in the first World-wide onferencia on the Climate. During the decade of 1980 the public preoccupation by the environmental questions was in increase, and the governments more and more became aware from the problems of the medio.ambiente. In 1988, the General Assembly of the United Nations approved resolution 43/53, propose by the Government of Malta, in which the protection of the climate for the present and future generations of the humanity was requested "".
During the same year, the governing organs of World-wide the Meteorological Organization (OMM) and of the Program of the Nations United for the Environment (PNUMA) created a new organism,
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
, to orient and to evaluate the scientific information on this subject. In 1990, the IPCC published their first report of evaluation, in which it was confirmed that the threat of the climatic change was real. In the second World-wide Conference on the Climate celebrated in Geneva later that same year the creation of a world-wide treaty was requested. The General Assembly responded approving resolution 45/212, in that negotiations started up officially about a convention on the climatic change, under the direction of the
Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC),
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The Convention takes off
The INC met in February of 1991 and their governmental representatives adopted (CMNUCC) after only 15 months of negotiations, the 9 of May of 1992. In the Conference of the Nations United on Environment and Development (or Earth Summit), celebrated in Rio de Janeiro in June of 1992, the new Convention was opened to the company/signature. Eight years later, 188 States had adhered to the Convention and the European Community. This practically world-wide adhesion does of the Convention one in international the environmental agreements that enjoys more universal support.
Ever since it took effect, the Parts in the Convention —los countries that have ratified or accepted the treaty or have adhered— they have met annually in the Conference of the Parts. The objective is to impel more and to supervise the application and to continue the conversations on the form indicated to approach the climatic change. The successive decisions made by the Conference of the Parts in their respective periods of sessions now constitute a detailed set of norms for the practical and effective application of the Convention.
However, already since they approved the Convention, the governments knew that their dispositions would not be sufficient to solve the problem of the climatic change. In the first Conference of the Parts, celebrated in Berlin at the beginning of 1995, a new round of conversations for the industrialized countries started up, well-known decision with the Mandate name of Berlin.
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| Birth of the Protocol of Kyoto |
After two years and means of intense negotiations, in the third Conference of the Parts celebrated in Kyoto (Japan) in December of 1997 a considerable extension of the Convention was approved, in which binding commitments were outlined legally. It was the Protocol of Kyoto. In him the basic norms took shelter, but they were not specified with detail how they would have to be applied. One anticipated an independent and official process of company/signature and ratification by the national governments before it could take effect.
A round of negotiations initiated in Buenos Aires in the fourth Conference of the Parts in November of 1998 allowed to see clearly how the Protocol would work actually. This round, cradle in an ambitious program of work (the Plan of action of Buenos Aires), tied the negotiations on the norms of the Protocol with conversations on questions relative to the application —como the financing and the transference of tecnología— within the framework joint of the Convention. The term for the negotiations by virtue of the Plan of action of Buenos Aires would be the sixth Conference of the Parts that would be celebrated in Is It (the Netherlands) at the end of 2000.
However, when that moment arrived, the complexity of the political questions in game caused a deadlock in the negotiations. These continued when the sixth Conference of the Parts in Bonn was started again (Germany), in 2001 July. In such occasion, the governments reached a political agreement —los Agreements of Bonn—, in which the controversial aspects of the Plan of action of Buenos Aires were eluded. Meanwhile, a third report of the IPCC had created a more propitious climate for the negotiations offering the accumulated most convincing tests to date on the world-wide heating.
In the seventh Conference of the Parts, celebrated few months later in Marrakech (Morocco), the negotiators continued the Agreements of Bonn adopting an ample set of decisions —conocido with the name in Agreements of Marrakech— that they included detailed norms more on the Protocol of Kyoto. These also contained important advances in the application of the Convention and its norms, which represented the conclusion of an important cycle of negotiations.
Facing the future
In the World-wide Summit on the Sustainable Development celebrated in Johannesburg (South Africa) in August and September of 2002, the Executive Secretary of the CMCC observed the following thing: "In the first decade of the Convention, the element fundamental of the world-wide negotiations era to reach an agreement on the norms relative to the application. Our challenge now is to apply those norms and to locate the climatic change in the center of the national policies and the initiatives of the companies and the civil society ".
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| The Convention |
Frame for the Convention
In the Convention a general frame for the intergovernmental initiatives directed is formulated to approach the climatic change. They settle down an objective and several principles and specify the commitments for the different groups from countries in agreement with their circumstances and necessities. A set of institutions is also anticipated to allow the governments to supervise the directed efforts to apply the Convention and to share opinions on the form more indicated to obtain the objectives of the same one.
Commitments
The Convention divides to the countries in three main groups, in agreement with its different commitments: The Parts including in the annexed I are the countries industrialized that were members of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (the OECD) in 1992, plus the Parts in process of transition to a market economy, in individual, the Federation of Russia, the Baltic States and several States of central and Eastern Europe. In the box of the right the countries including in the Annexed I can be seen at the moment. An obligation that affects solely Parts annexed I is the one to adopt political and measures relative to the climatic change with the purpose of not later reducing to its gas discharges of effect conservatory to the levels of 1990 of year 2000. This disposition forces to give firmness example to them to face the problems of climatic change.
The Convention grants "certain degree of flexibility" to the Parts in process of transition to a market economy, in consideration of the recent economic and political disturbances of these countries. Several of those Parts have made use of that flexibility and have selected a year of reference different from 1990 for their specific commitments. Parts annexed II are the countries members of the OECD including in the annexed I, but not them countries in process of transition to a market economy. They must offer financial resources to allow the countries developing to undertake activities of reduction of the emissions in accordance with the arranged thing in the Convention and to help them to adapt to the negative effects of the climatic change. In addition, "they will take all the measures possible" to promote the development and the transference of environmentally healthy technologies to the Parts that are countries developing and with economies in transition. The financing offered by it Parts annexed II is channeled fundamentally through the financial mechanism of the Convention.
Objective and principles
The last objective of the Convention is:
"... to obtain the stabilization of the concentrations of effect gases conservatory in the atmosphere at a level that prevents dangerous antropógenas interferences in the climatic system... "
In the definition of "dangerous" social and economic considerations, as well as scientists are included. However, in the Convention one affirms that the proposed level of concentration would have to be obtained in a term sufficient to allow that the ecosystems adapt naturally to the climatic change, to assure that the food production is not threatened and to allow that the economic development continues of sustainable way. The principles of the Convention have the following bases:
• Fairness and responsibilities common but differentiated and their respective capacities, taking into account that, although the climate is a question of world-wide reach and must be approached like so,
industrialized countries have contributed historically to the problem and more have more resources to solve it. On the other hand, the countries developing are more vulnerable to the negative effects, and
probably its capacity of answer is smaller.
• Exposition based on the precaution, that is to say, recognition of which, although there are many uncertainties about the climatic change, if it is hoped to have certainties before adopting initiatives, or measured precautorias, runs the risk of arriving too much late to avoid the most serious effects. In the Convention it is observed that "when is threat of serious or irreversible damage, the lack of total scientific certainty like reason would not have to be used to pospone such measures".
• Recognition of which the development and the climatic change mutually are related and that of the guidelines of energy consumption, of advantage of the Earth and population increase are the main factors of the one and of the other. In the Convention it is considered that sustainable the economic growth and the development are ingredients fundamental of the effective policies to approach the climatic change. It is also requested that the policies and measures to do in front of the climatic change are effective based on the costs in order of assuring world-wide benefits to the smaller possible cost. |
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| The Convention and the Protocol |
Activities executed jointly
The Convention allows Parts annexed I to apply to policies and measures jointly with other Parts to help to fulfill its objectives in the matter of emissions. In the first Conference of the Parts an experimental phase started up de"actividades executed jointly ". In that frame, Parts annexed I can execute projects that reduce the emissions (for example, of conservation of the energy) or increase to the absorption of effect gases conservatory by the carbon drains (for example, reforestation projects) in other Parts. However, credits the absorption or reduction of resulting emissions are not recognized (unlike which it happens in the Protocol of Kyoto; it see the page 16).
This experimental phase has like purpose of contributing to develop to the technical knowledge thanks to the experience. Although the experimental phase was associate with objectives corresponding to year 2000, in the fifth CP was decided to prolong it beyond that date to continue the learning process. It was considered that it was specially important for regions like Africa where the experience with this type of activities until then had been limited.
The secretariat compiles summarized information of the projects about which it receives information, that they must be ratified so much by the country host as by the country investor. In their information on these projects, the Parts must use a uniform format of presentation of information, to facilitate the comparison of the information. The Conference of the Parts examines the made progresses periodically, taking as it bases the summarized information.
For June of 2001, 150 projects of activities executed jointly had been notified to the secretariat more than, in which had taken part near the 25 percent of the Parts in the Convention, either like investors or like hosts. Approximately the 70 percent of the Parts of welcome is Parts nonannexed I, but the Parts with economies in transition still receive most of the projects of activities executed jointly. In any case, the proportion this
moving gradually towards the countries developing. Most of the projects is related to the renewable energy and the efficient use of the energy, but most important they consist of activities of conservation, reforestation or forest restoration.
The Protocol
The processes stipulated in the Convention have evolved quickly from their adoption in 1992. In the preceding pages the progresses obtained in the application of their dispositions have been described. Those advances have made possible, in many senses, one more a firmer answer of the world-wide community front to the climatic change. The Convention continues serving as it guides main of the governmental interventions to fight the climatic change. It also continues being the base of fundamental activities related to the presentation of information, the finances, the transcendental transference of technology and other questions that constitute the spinal marrow of the process of climatic change.
A parallel advance has been the adoption, in 1997, and the later development of the Protocol of Kyoto, with its objectives of legally binding emissions for the industrialized countries. The adoption in 2001 in the Agreements of Marrakech in detail clarified the norms of the Protocol.
Before the Protocol can take effect, they must ratify it (or approve it or accept it or adhere to him) at least 55 Parts in the Convention, among them an annexed number of Parts I that the 55 percent of the dioxide emissions represents at least carbon of this group in 1990 (it see the box of page 15). With it it is avoided that a single Part including in the annexed I can block the take effect of the Protocol. The first Parts ratified it in 1998 and its take effect could happen at any time.
Frame for the Action
The Protocol of Kyoto complements and reinforces the Convention. Only the Parts in the Convention can be Parts in the Protocol. This it has as it such bases principles that the Convention and shares its last objective, as well as the form in which the countries are grouped in Parts annexed I, annexed II and nonannexed I. It also has in common the same institutions of the Convention, including the subsidiary organs and the secretariat. The Conference of the Parts will serve like "meeting of the Parts" in the Protocol.
The IPCC will support to the Protocol in the scientific, technical and methodologic questions.
General commitments and Norms
The norms of the Protocol are centered in the following aspects:
• Commitments, with inclusion of objectives on legally binding emissions and general commitments
• Execution, including the national measures and three new mechanisms of execution
• Reduction to the minimum of the impact in the countries developing, including the use of the Bottom of Adaptation
• Accounting, information and examination, including the examination in depth of the national information
• Fulfillment, including a Committee of Fulfillment to evaluate and to take care of the problematic cases.
These five elements are described with greater detail in the following pages, in which the form is also specified in which they must work, as it is indicated in the Agreements of Marrakech and later decisions of the Conference of the Parts. In addition to the objectives on emissions established for the Parts including in the annexed I, the Protocol of Kyoto it contains a set of general commitments (which they correspond to those of the Convention) which are applied to all the Parts and between that are the following ones:
• To adopt measures to improve the quality of the data on emissions
• To organize national programs of mitigación and adaptation
• To promote the transference of environmentally healthy technologies
• To cooperate in the scientific research and it international networks of observation of the climate
• To endorse the initiatives of education, formation, public sensibilización and promotion of the capacity.
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:: Last News:: |
| COP 11 and COP/MOP1 |
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Kyoto, 16 of February of 2005. – Canada will jointly welcome in Montreal the first Meeting of the Parts in the Protocol of Kyoto with the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parts in the Convention Frame of the Nations United on Climatic Change CMNUCC). Mesa of the Convention today accepted the offer made by the Government of Canada in one
meeting held in Kyoto (Japan). The Conference will take place between the 28 of November and the 9
of December of 2005 in Palais DES Congrès of Montreal. more..
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:: Related Links :: |
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Centre for International Sustainable Development Law
www.cisdl.org |
International Institute for Sustainable Development
www.iisd.org |
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