Introduction
Climate Change is a global phenomenon that international policy-makers are quickly coming to realise is a serious problem in need of being addressed immediately (Koh et al., 3). The rapid warming of the earth has, in the past, been dismissed as unimportant; ‘simply a concern for polar bears stranded on melting ice caps’, but in actuality, Climate Change is a huge human rights crisis. There are numerous people who have to worry about losing a basic human right – the right to a home – because soon the land that they live on will cease to exist above sea level (“Why Climate Change is a Threat to Human Rights”). Now knowing this, countries around the world are working on international agreements to fix this problem.
One such agreement …show more content…
The Kyoto Protocol outlined three mechanisms to help meet this goal: Joint Implementation (JI), International Emissions Trading (IET), and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) (Yamin, xli).
Implementation Challenge:
As well as trying to mitigate Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol was also trying to preserve the economic development of developing countries, because history shows that developed countries have been the main emitters of GHGs while developing countries suffer most of the consequences (Oberthür, 27). This resulted in giving developing countries a ‘free pass’ and giving developed countries all the commitments of the accord. Additionally, the mechanisms that the Protocol proposed were already “economically efficient and politically impractical”, borrowing words from Christopher Bohringer, making it even worse for developing countries. However, this division of responsibilities by developmental state meant it was difficult to get countries to come to a consensus. In the end it led to some countries, particularly the USA, refusing ratification of the agreement. The USA was at the time the largest emitter of GHGs, so having them, alongside India and China, not participate meant that the Kyoto Protocol was on shaky ground …show more content…
The three mechanisms making up the Protocol were hastily taken from other treaties (e.g. the Montreal Protocol regarding ozone depletion, the US-Soviet nuclear arms treaty, and a treaty on acid rain reduction) and ‘adapted’ to emission reductions. However, those problems were straightforward and their solutions were not appropriate to the situation at hand. For example: IET and the creation of a carbon market. Hypothetically, this would work, because the units for carbon allowance would be seen as a limited resource, raising its ‘price’ and lowering the demand to use carbon, but carbon is not like ozone depleting gases; there are no perfect, easy substitutes (“Why the Kyoto Protocol Failed and a New Way Forward”). That being said, the ‘price’ barely increased and demand barely lowered (because there was no physical limit on the number of units; governments were allowed to make allowances and add more units into the market whenever necessary), changing nothing (Prins and Rayner,
Climate Change is a global phenomenon that international policy-makers are quickly coming to realise is a serious problem in need of being addressed immediately (Koh et al., 3). The rapid warming of the earth has, in the past, been dismissed as unimportant; ‘simply a concern for polar bears stranded on melting ice caps’, but in actuality, Climate Change is a huge human rights crisis. There are numerous people who have to worry about losing a basic human right – the right to a home – because soon the land that they live on will cease to exist above sea level (“Why Climate Change is a Threat to Human Rights”). Now knowing this, countries around the world are working on international agreements to fix this problem.
One such agreement …show more content…
The Kyoto Protocol outlined three mechanisms to help meet this goal: Joint Implementation (JI), International Emissions Trading (IET), and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) (Yamin, xli).
Implementation Challenge:
As well as trying to mitigate Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol was also trying to preserve the economic development of developing countries, because history shows that developed countries have been the main emitters of GHGs while developing countries suffer most of the consequences (Oberthür, 27). This resulted in giving developing countries a ‘free pass’ and giving developed countries all the commitments of the accord. Additionally, the mechanisms that the Protocol proposed were already “economically efficient and politically impractical”, borrowing words from Christopher Bohringer, making it even worse for developing countries. However, this division of responsibilities by developmental state meant it was difficult to get countries to come to a consensus. In the end it led to some countries, particularly the USA, refusing ratification of the agreement. The USA was at the time the largest emitter of GHGs, so having them, alongside India and China, not participate meant that the Kyoto Protocol was on shaky ground …show more content…
The three mechanisms making up the Protocol were hastily taken from other treaties (e.g. the Montreal Protocol regarding ozone depletion, the US-Soviet nuclear arms treaty, and a treaty on acid rain reduction) and ‘adapted’ to emission reductions. However, those problems were straightforward and their solutions were not appropriate to the situation at hand. For example: IET and the creation of a carbon market. Hypothetically, this would work, because the units for carbon allowance would be seen as a limited resource, raising its ‘price’ and lowering the demand to use carbon, but carbon is not like ozone depleting gases; there are no perfect, easy substitutes (“Why the Kyoto Protocol Failed and a New Way Forward”). That being said, the ‘price’ barely increased and demand barely lowered (because there was no physical limit on the number of units; governments were allowed to make allowances and add more units into the market whenever necessary), changing nothing (Prins and Rayner,