Kyoto Protocolby | 24-02-2015 17:08 |
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The emergence of industrial era in 1950s significantly altered the composition of gas in atmosphere by emitting large amount of carbon. As a result the globe faced issues of global warming and climate change. To minimize the threat the global leaders and scientist came up with solution- to decrease the volume of Carbon in atmosphere and lessen the emission. As a binding document for the initiative Kyoto Protocol was promulgated. The text of the document was agreed in 1992 but it was adopted only on United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Kyoto, Japan in 1997. But it entered into force only in 2005 (UNFCCC, 2008). The protocol moving a step forward developed market based mechanism to trade emission, encouraging countries to curb the emission as well as benefiting the countries that contribute in sequestrating the carbon. The protocol has categorized the countries as Annex-I, and non-annex countries. Annex-I countries include the developed countries and economy in transition- having high emission and non-annex countries including the underdeveloped and developing countries- having low emission. To minimize the threat of climate change Kyoto protocol has obliged its Annex-I countries to cut down their emission below 5% than that of their emission in 1990. The countries may do it alone or in collaboration with other countries. To facilitate the process, Koto has developed Joint Implementation (JI) and Emission Trading (ET) mechanism among the Annex I and annex-II countries, where they trade off the carbon emission and support each other technically and financially to curb the emission. Clean Development mechanism is another platform of Kyoto Protocol where the Annex and Non annex countries come in contact and work collaboratively to curb the emission (Sharma et al., 2004). Recently the news revealed that the countries have achieved more than expected in the first commitment period. The first commitment period expected bind the Annex-I countries to reduce their emission by at least 5% than that of 1990 between 2008-2012. The report suggests the reduction has been made as high as 20%. the Kyoto has now entered into the second commitment period of 2013-2020. with the 22nd COP, he countries are expected to have more stringent measures to curb carbon emission. The faith on the leadership is high, we hope they deliver like they delivered the commitment in first commitment period. |