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Climate Change

2. Global response

The European Union has been committed to international efforts to combat climate change and has been instrumental in the development of the two major treaties addressing the issue, the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol

The UNFCCC sets an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenge posed by climate change. It recognises that climatic stability can be affected by industrial and other emissions of greenhouse gases and that a global response is needed to tackle climate change.  The Convention enjoys near universal membership, with 192 countries having ratified it.

The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in December 1997 and came into force in early 2005. As of May 2008, 182 partied have ratified the protocol. Of these, 37 industrialised countries (plus the EU as a party in its own right) are required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the levels specified for each of them in the treaty.

Brazil, China and India have all signed the Kyoto Protocol, but have no obligation beyond monitoring and reporting emissions. The United States has not ratified the treaty. Although Washington helped shape it, President George W. Bush pulled the United States out as soon as he took office in March, 2001. Critics argue that with the US on the sidelines, Kyoto is meaningless, but supporters say the agreement has huge symbolic value.

The Kyoto Protocol controls emissions of the following greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride. It has three main mechanisms to do this:

• “Clean Development Targets” assign targets for reducing or limiting emissions of 37 industrialised countries;
• “Emissions Trading” allows industrial plants that do not use up allocations can sell "credits" to those who overshoot allowances;
• “Joint Implementation” allows countries to develop an emissions-reduction project in another country to gain emissions credits.

The targets of Kyoto expire at the end of 2012. International negotiations are continuing under the UNFCCC to find agreement on global action on climate change after 2012. The aim is to reach an agreement at the climate conference planned in Copenhagen for December 2009.

For the post-Kyoto negotiations, the first and biggest challenge will be to draw all major world emitters - including the US and China - into a binding pollution-cutting scheme.