Microsoft Registry Mechanic

The need to control climate change by reducing the world’s emissions of greenhouse gases is now accepted throughout the international community. One of the toughest problems in getting an international agreement to do so has been how to share the responsibility between the developed and developing world. Does the Kyoto Protocol have the solution?

Kyoto Mechanisms

The Kyoto Protocol was drawn up in 1997 and came into force in February 2005. At its heart the Protocol requires that by the period 2008-2012 a group of 40 developed countries will have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by five percent below their 1990 levels. While the Protocol commits the developing countries to adopt appropriate policies to control their emissions, those countries are not committed to specific emissions targets.

The Protocol hands most of the responsibility for reducing emissions to the developed countries, but reductions anywhere in the world will ultimately have the same effect on the atmosphere and threats of global warming. Moreover some developed countries might find it easier and more cost effective to support emissions reductions in other developed or developing countries rather than at home.