Everyone knows that Kyoto was a failure. Right? The Independent even ran a story last October titled "Scientists Say Kyoto Protocol Is 'Outdated Failure”. A bold assertion it may be, however as we will see in this essay it may be a bit too early to make such claims. When the ink dried on the climate treaty negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, on December 11, 1997, it’s fair to say that many expected the agreement would prove to be a watershed moment in the international effort to address global warming — as a result of the treaty, many hoped, global emissions of greenhouse gases would stop their inexorable climb upward and eventually reverse direction.
Unfortunately this was not to be. Ever since 1997, rather than decreasing or even just simply stabilizing, global emissions from fossil fuels have increased by 28 percent: from 22,849 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year to 29,320 million metric tons. An “outdated failure,” right? Well, yes, if you accept the premise that Kyoto’s goal was to reduce global emissions. Actually, it wasn’t.
The Protocol’s Framework
By the end of 1992, much of the world community, including the United States, had adopted the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to "stabiliz[e] ... greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” The framework did not create any binding emissions reductions for the signatories; it simply committed them to a set of general principles. The establishment of specific emissions targets was left to a subsequent agreement: the Kyoto Protocol.
The Kyoto Protocols Specifics
While the UNFCCC's some what estimable target of avoiding unwanted, dangerous climate change was also the ultimate objective of the Kyoto Protocol, the specifics of its goals was far more modest in comparison. Its goal was to reduce the collective emissions of greenhouse gases from participating industrialized countries by 5.2 percent relative to 1990. So there are two important things to note:
1. The emissions reduction goal was limited to the industrialized or Annex B countries, not the entire world.
2. Even though each country received a specific percentage reduction of greenhouse gases as their target, these goals were not binding in the literal sense as each signatory country could use a variety of trading mechanisms to get credit for emission reductions, in a sense “trade” their quotas from other countries as ultimately the goal was that, the industrialized nations would reduce their emissions collectively by 5.2 percent.
Currently, 38 Annex B countries including the 15 from the European Union (which together account for 64 percent of 1990 global emissions) who have ratified the Protocol (see table attached), as have 150 developing nations (which have no binding emissions commitments under Kyoto).
It is important to note that while the United States was on Kyoto's original list of Annex B countries, it does not however reside on the current list, as the U.S. Senate never ratified the treaty. As a matter of fact, in an astounding show of bipartisanship, five months prior to signing Kyoto the American Senate passed, 95–0, a nonbinding ‘Sense of the Senate’ resolution that rejects any international climate treaty which did not include binding targets for developing nations. This decision reverberates still in America with the IEA’s [International Energy Agency] report which states that 97 percent of growth in greenhouse gas emissions between now and 2050 will come from the developing world, a copious chunk of which would most definitely originate from China and India.
So How Did Those Annex B Ratifiers Do Since Kyoto?
The graphic below depicts the percentage in emissions relative to 1990 for the following countries and groups of countries (from left to right):
2. EU-15: European Union
3. EIT: Economies in Transition (essentially the former Soviet Union and Eastern bloc countries)
4. Non-EIT: All the Annex B ratifiers without the EIT and EU nations
5. United States of America
6. China
7. World
As it turns out, not only are Kyoto's Annex B countries keeping up with their quotas, they are in fact exceeding their commitments made in Kyoto. By 2007, their collective emissions in total were about 17 percent below the 1990 base year emissions.
It has to be said however; the lion’s share of this decrease was not the direct result of any new low-carbon technology or specific emissions policy, but it was mostly due to the fall of the Soviet Union. With the Soviet Union's dissolution came a precipitous economic collapse, from which the nations of the former Communist bloc have yet to fully recover. By 2007, the emissions of nations with transitioning economies (EIT) was in fact at about 37 percent below their 1990 levels but with normalization of their economies on the horizon, it is thought by some that the former Soviet bloc may even double their emissions in the coming ten to twenty years.
At the very least the rest of the Annex B countries are not doing badly. Collectively, their emissions are at only about two percent above 1990 levels — a considerably smaller percentage increase than that of the United States or China. The fifteen member states of the European Union also appear to be on a course to meet their Kyoto target: by 2007, one year before the five-year Kyoto clock began, the EU-15 countries’ emissions were estimated to be about four percent below the 1990 baseline.
Mixed Results
As you can see, the facts suggest it’s a little early and a little misleading to declare Kyoto a failure. In all likelihood when 2012 rolls around, what will be found is that overall the Annex B countries would have cut emissions by more than the intended 5.2 percent. Although this will be due in large part to the Soviet Union's break-up, the treaty did not include any requirements for adjustments for economic eventualities. And even so, it is most likely that will the EU will be able to cut its emissions by five percent or more independent of the Soviet Union. Here again the current economic downturn will most likely help create this figure.
So far from being a failure, the Kyoto Protocol looks like it will meet its very limited goals. But all that said and done, Kyoto still cannot be counted as a massive success either. The global outlook is still hovering between bad and bleak. In spite of the treaty, global emissions from fossil fuel use have increased by almost 37 percent since 1990. There are two factors that have undoubtedly contributed to this:
1. The enormous increase in emissions from China. Its emissions have increased by a whopping 153 percent since 1990, and China is now arguably the largest emitter. The failure to place binding emissions targets on developing economies like China was a fundamental flaw in Kyoto and one that must be rectified in the next round of negotiations (coming up in December).
2. The failure of the United States to ratify Kyoto. In contrast to the European Union, the United States — the world's largest economy and the largest emitter over the period since Kyoto was signed — saw a 17 percent increase in its emissions since 1990. The treaty was seriously crippled by the U.S. decision not to ratify.
The Indo-Sino-American Quarrel
Now, some Americans may argue against national climate legislation and international treaties by pointing at Kyoto’s “failure,” but I find such an argument a little ironic — and a lot tautological — when one of the factors that undermined Kyoto was the “failure” of the United States to ratify the treaty in the first place. If one were to read the climate-change news in recent weeks, one might wonder who won the last election in the United States. Aside from adopting several of former President Bush’s key positions in the International Climate Change negotiations, President Obama’s administration have gone against its election promises by rejecting the Kyoto Protocol thus ensuring that it will expire in 2012. Even when asked about reports that he has decided not to attend the Copenhagen Summit this December, he simply demurred the question. Due to this and more, Yvo de Boer, a senior United Nations climate negotiator, concluded that it simply would be “unrealistic” to expect the conference to produce a new, comprehensive and internationally accepted climate treaty. This also be said to describe the once-fond hopes for passage of an American climate legislation by the end Obama’s first term let alone by the end of the year.
America’s actual history with Kyoto complicates the story on the international side. Thus it is not as simple as some greens would like to portray it to be today. As mentioned earlier, it was a rare moment of bipartisan consensus on policy in 1997 when the Senate voted unanimously against its basic tenets of the Kyoto Protocol, and the Clinton-Gore administration never even submitted it for ratification. Even then, a little-known state legislator from Illinois named Barack Obama, voted to condemn Kyoto and prohibit the state from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. The treaty’s fundamental perceived flaws was that it was costly, very ambitious and its targets for the United States were deemed to dear while it allowed emissions from the developing world to continue to rise unchecked.
Less than a year into Obama’s first term, it seems plausible that no climate bill will pass before 2013 at the earliest, and that the Kyoto Protocol will expire in 2012 without a comprehensive successor agreement to take its place. Having promised to lead the Copenhagen negotiations to a successful conclusion, Obama now finds himself in a bind: As he is unable to get a bill through Congress, it can be alluded that he would not want to repeat Gore’s mistake by letting the Europeans pressure him into signing a treaty the Senate won’t ratify while sanctioning unrestricted emissions from the developing world, especially India and China. Since treaties require the support of two-thirds of the Senate, ratification will be more difficult than passage of domestic legislation. So the Administration’s draft implementing agreement submitted to the UN in May specified that emissions reductions would be subject to “conformity with domestic law.” In other words, whatever is agreed to here doesn’t mean a thing if the Senate doesn’t agree. As Jonathan Pershing, a top State Department negotiator remarked at the recent climate negotiators’ meeting in Bangkok. “We are not going to be part of an agreement we cannot meet.”
Indeed today, despite Kyoto’s ratification, China has become the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases so the China-India problem remains unsolved as well. Obama clearly is not blind to the serious political, economic, and environmental problems with any treaty that reaffirms Kyoto’s sanction of unrestricted emissions from these two countries and the rest of the developing world. Climate advocates have long argued that the key to overcoming developing world resistance to emissions limits is American leadership; if they went first, China and India would follow. Sceptics note that what America would gain in credibility it may lose in leverage needed to force a deal in Copenhagen. In any case, Congress’s inaction—and its continued concern about trade competitiveness questions—has forced Obama, in effect, to take the Bush position: No new treaty without developing world participation. As NPR, a privately and publicly funded non-profit media organization in the United States, recently reported, Kyoto will be allowed to expire after 2012. “The United States never ratified the agreement because it doesn't require any action from the developing world, including China, the world’s largest emitter. The Bush administration considered that a fatal flaw. And so does the Obama White House.”
This is the crux of the argument: The crucial feature of the deal that Gore struck in Kyoto was its exemption of the developing world from emissions reduction obligations. Without that concession, the developing world would never have accepted the treaty—but with it, the treaty was almost worthless (particularly since, as a political matter, that provision precluded American participation). This was the fatal flaw of Kyoto—and, having established that exemption, it will be doubly hard to persuade developing nations to undo it.
It seems that Obama intends to be subtle with these issues by reaching bilateral agreements with China and India. However, critics have pointed out that by doing so this could potentially undermine the multilateral architecture of the prospective Copenhagen treaty. Conversely, recent reports appear to show that no bilateral agreements will be forthcoming suggesting that a deal by Copenhagen is unlikely. Both China and India are under enormous international pressure to accept emissions limits while at the same time under even greater domestic pressure to maintain a strong rate of economic growth. So far, both countries have firmly resisted calls for binding emissions caps, although President Hu Jintao has said that China will reduce its emissions relative to economic growth—that is, the greenhouse-gas “intensity” of the Chinese economy, not total emissions—by a “notable” margin by 2020 and both China and India have promised to seek alternate methods of power generation in order to reduce their emissions.
Sources
1. UNFCCC, Kyoto Protocol, http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php
2. International Energy Agency, “CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion” http://www.iea.org/co2highlights/
3. Patrick J. Michaels, 26 September 2007; “Lessons of Kyoto”, CATO Institute.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8725
4. UNFCCC , “Kyoto Protocol -Status of Ratification”, http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/status_of_ratification/items/2631.php
5. UNFCCC, “Kyoto Protocol – Targets”, http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/3145.php
6. 25 July 1995; “U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 105th Congress - 1st Session On the Resolution (s.res.98 )”, http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=105&session=1&vote=00205
7. Richard Harris, 16 October 2009; “Future Unlikely For Kyoto Climate Treaty”, www.npr.org
8. David Adam, 15 September 2009; “US planning to weaken Copenhagen climate deal, Europe warns”, The Guardian
9. Giles Whittell, 24 October 2009;”President Obama won’t talk climate change in Copenhagen”, The Times
10. Giles Whittell, 27 October 2009; “President Obama 'still undecided' about attending Copenhagen climate conference”, The Times
11. Ken Dilanian, 18 July 2008; “Obama shifts stance on environmental issues”, USATODAY
12. 18 November 2008; “President-Elect Obama's Address to the Global Climate Summit”, http://www.climatevision.gov/statements/statements_111808.html
13. Leonard Doyle, 20 November 2008; “Obama brings US in from the cold”, The Independent
14. May 29, 2009; “U.S. Submission on Copenhagen Agreed Outcome”, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs
15. Suzanne Goldenberg and Jonathan Watts, 14 October 2009; “US aims for bilateral climate change deals with China and India”, The Guardian
16. 29 October 2009; U.S.-China Climate Pact Isn't on Table, Envoy Says, The Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125677216535814493.html?mod=fox_australian
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