Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC (2005)
The Agreement and its Goals:
The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which aimed to mitigate anthropogenic effects of greenhouse gases on the environment by introducing a set of binding emission reduction targets for individual countries. Considering the threatening scale of the problem and the wide geographical distribution of GHG emissions, the Protocol required international cooperation to succeed. During the first commitment period from 2008 to 2012, the Protocol had committed 37 industrialized countries and the European Community to reduce emissions by an average of 5% against 1990 levels. Since the individual targets …show more content…
The US dropped out of the agreement in 2001 in order to avoid the risk of a potentially drastic decline in the country 's economy at a time when it was already undergoing recession and was depending heavily on oil imports. The country 's exit brought with it negative production externalities, as emissions from the US were to affect territories that were not directly responsible for them. As an influential superpower of the world, the US has set a bad example globally by revoking its support on the Protocol ("The Kyoto Protocol: Challenges", n.d., para. 2). More recently in 2011, alongside Japan and Russia, Canada pulled out of the agreement in order to focus on development in other sectors. "We would have to pull every truck and car off the street, shut down every train and ground every plane to reach the Kyoto target the Liberals negotiated for Canada," argued the Conservative Environment Minister, Rona Ambrose in 2006 (CBC News, 2012). In addition, there has also been limited participation on the part of rapidly developing states like China and India, both of which had been exempted from the commitment so as to not …show more content…
Many governments could not ratify the Protocol while this risk of unnecessary harm existed (Rollings-Magnusson & Magnusson, 2000). Since the global infrastructure depends so heavily on fuel burning technologies, attempting to cut down on GHG emissions, apart from being ridiculously costly, would inevitably lead to large-scale unemployment, which may subsequently deal a death blow to a state 's economy in the long run. For the above reasons, limited participation, owing majorly to economic risks, arguably played the pivotal role in the failure of the
The Agreement and its Goals:
The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which aimed to mitigate anthropogenic effects of greenhouse gases on the environment by introducing a set of binding emission reduction targets for individual countries. Considering the threatening scale of the problem and the wide geographical distribution of GHG emissions, the Protocol required international cooperation to succeed. During the first commitment period from 2008 to 2012, the Protocol had committed 37 industrialized countries and the European Community to reduce emissions by an average of 5% against 1990 levels. Since the individual targets …show more content…
The US dropped out of the agreement in 2001 in order to avoid the risk of a potentially drastic decline in the country 's economy at a time when it was already undergoing recession and was depending heavily on oil imports. The country 's exit brought with it negative production externalities, as emissions from the US were to affect territories that were not directly responsible for them. As an influential superpower of the world, the US has set a bad example globally by revoking its support on the Protocol ("The Kyoto Protocol: Challenges", n.d., para. 2). More recently in 2011, alongside Japan and Russia, Canada pulled out of the agreement in order to focus on development in other sectors. "We would have to pull every truck and car off the street, shut down every train and ground every plane to reach the Kyoto target the Liberals negotiated for Canada," argued the Conservative Environment Minister, Rona Ambrose in 2006 (CBC News, 2012). In addition, there has also been limited participation on the part of rapidly developing states like China and India, both of which had been exempted from the commitment so as to not …show more content…
Many governments could not ratify the Protocol while this risk of unnecessary harm existed (Rollings-Magnusson & Magnusson, 2000). Since the global infrastructure depends so heavily on fuel burning technologies, attempting to cut down on GHG emissions, apart from being ridiculously costly, would inevitably lead to large-scale unemployment, which may subsequently deal a death blow to a state 's economy in the long run. For the above reasons, limited participation, owing majorly to economic risks, arguably played the pivotal role in the failure of the