Boslman, Ein, et al., Energy, Economics and the Environment (2006), lections from Chapter 16
The “Rio Plus 5,” a special ssion of the U.N. General Asmbly five years after the Rio Conference, ended without substantive commitments to GHG reductions. This led to the third conference of the parties (COP) to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), held in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997, and the adoption of the “Kyoto Protocol.”赛季英文
ABA Section of Natural Resources, Energy and Environmental Law Special Committee on Climate Change and Sustainable Development
1997 Annual Report
On December 11, 1997, in Kyoto Japan, the Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) unanimously adopted the “Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change” (Kyoto Protocol). The FCCC concluded nearly two years of international negotiations involving various FCCC subsidiary bodies and resulted in an international agreement calling for binding obligations on Annex I Parties (developed countries) to reduce their greenhou gas emissions at least five percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012.
The U.S. will have, during the first commitment period of 2008-2012, binding obligations to reduce its 1) carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions ven percent below 1990 levels and 2) hydrofluorocarbon, perfluorocarbon and sulfur hexafluoride emissions ven percent below 1990 or 1995 levels. The same ba years or ba periods apply to all Annex I Parties except for countries with economies in transition (EITs), which are allowed some flexibility in the lection of a ba year or ba period. The “assigned amounts” (targets) are t forth in Annex B to protocol and include the following:
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Norway 101%
Russia, Ukraine, New Zealand 100%
Croatia 95%
Japan, Canada, Poland, Hungary 94%
U.S. 93%
European Union (EU) collectively, Switzerland, other EITs 92%
Targets and timetables and binding obligations. Known as Quantified Emission Limitations and Reduction Objectives (QELROs), the binding commitments and targets and timetables for Annex I parties are t forth in Article 3 and Annexes A and B. The key compromi was the EU as a bloc agreeing to a collective eight percent reduction under its so-called “bubble”(e Article 4 and discussion in I.A.2, infra), with the U.S. agreeing to a ven percent reduction level and Japan agreeing to a six percent reduction level. Thus, the commitments are politically differentiated but were not determined by any formulaic means.
Critical components of the agreement on targets and timetables were agreements on coverage of gas–the so-called “basket” approach–and “sinks,” or forestry-bad offts. Coverage of all six gas was crucial to the U.S. The option of being able to elect a different baline for the cond t of gas was important to Japan and other countries. No clear connsus could be reached on sinks, so the Parties agreed to limit removals by sinks to afforestation, reforestation and deforestation since 1990, subject to later decisions by the conference, taking into account work by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. See Articles 3.3, 3.4 and 3.7.
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“Banking” of excess reductions from the first commitment period to meet obligations in a subquent commitment period was allowed, but “borrowing” of reductions from a subquent commitment period to meet obligations in the first commitment period was not. See Article 3.13.
Policies and measures, and the EU bubble. Under Article 4, the EU received its bubble, under which it collectively will be responsible for an eight percent reduction but will also have the flexibility to assign different targets to individual Parties. Thus, some EU countries will be able to increa their emissions, while others (such as the United Kingdom and Germany) will bear a larger share of reductions. Failure by the EU to meet the collective eight percent target will mean that each Party shall be responsible for meeting its own level of emissions t out in the EU agreement. See Article 4.5. However, the EU was only able to obtain a weakened version of policies and measures (PAMs) in Article 2. While there is still mandatory language in Article 2, implementation or “elaboration” of such PAMs appears to be discretionary in accordance with individual Parties’ national circumstances.
Emissions trading and commitments for developing countries. The two issues threatened to crater the negotiations in the early hours of December 11. Ultimately, the U.S. and other Annex I Parties insisted on emissions trading,
and the non-Annex I Parties (developing countries) acceded in order to avoid total collap of the negotiations. Later, however, although many Annex I Parties and some non-Annex I Parties sought to include a U.S.-sponsored provision so that advanced developing countries could “opt in” to Annex I commitments, the U.S. acceded to developing countries’ insistence that the protocol exclude binding obligations for developing countries, the opt-in provision, and even establishment of a process for developing such commitments for developing nations.
Emissions trading, joint implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism. Becau no clear connsus could be forged on many critical issues, numerous framework, shell or placeholder provisions are scattered throughout the Kyoto Protocol. Notable among the are the following provisions: emissions trading (Articles 3.10, 3.11 and 16 bis); joint implementation among Annex I Parties (Articles 3.10, 3.11 and 6); the so-called Clean Development Mechanism (Articles 3.12 and 12), which became a substitute for joint implementation between Annex I and non-Annex I Parties and for the Brazil-sponsored Clean Development Fund; credit for early action from the year 2000 (Article 12.10); and enforcement and noncompliance (Article 17).
NOTES AND COMMENTS
1. An extensive analysis of the Kyoto Protocol is found in Michael Grubb et al., The Kyoto Protocol: A Guide and Asssment (Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1999). Perhaps the key question in the international politics of climate change is whether the developing countries will remain unified in their prent posture. At one point during the Kyoto negotiations, some 35 developing countries supported a proposal to provide an explicit path by which developing countries might voluntarily adopt quantified commitments, but Brazil, India, China and the OPEC countries lined up solidly against it and it was withdrawn. Grubb, supra at 110. For a relatively optimistic look at the possibilities for reductions by developing countries, e Jonathan Baert Wiener, On the Political Economy of Global Environmental Regulation, 87 Geo. L. J. 749 (1999). For a critique of Kyoto from a deep ecology perspective, e Prue Taylor, An Ecological Approach to International Law: Responding to Challenges of Climate Change (Routledge, 1998).
2. The United States, the world's biggest GHG emitter, explicitly rejected the Kyoto Protocol in 2001. President Bush said Kyoto was too costly, bad on
unreliable science and unfairly excluded big developing nations like India, China and Brazil which account for a third of the world's population. In 2005, on the occasion of President Bush’s visit to Europe, British Prime Minister Blair promid to try to persuade the U.S. to rethink. “The truth of the
matter is without America there is no deal. We have got to do our best and u our relationship with America to try and make sure they come into agreement with us. Whether I will be able to achieve it or not, I don't know,” he told Channel Five TV. Doyle, supra. Australia, the only big developed nation on the sidelines with the United States, said it had no plans to sign up. “Until such time as the major polluters of the world, including the United States and China, are made part of the Kyoto regime it is next to uless and indeed harmful for a country such as Australia to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol,”Prime Minister John Howard told the Australian Parliament. Id.
3. In July 1997, the only vote in the U.S. Senate on the Kyoto Protocol took place. By a unanimous vote of 95-0, the U.S. Senate adopted S. Res. 98, the so-called Byrd-Hagel Resolution. S. Res. 98, 105th Cong., 143 Cong. Rec. S8138-39 (daily ed. July 25, 1997). S. Res. 98 stated that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol to, or other agreement regarding, the Climate Convention that would (A) mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhou gas emissions for the Annex I [developed country] Parties, unless the protocol or other agreement also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhou gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period, or (B) would result in rious harm to the economy of the United States.
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One argument cited by a number of Senators was the same one later made by President Bush: that the Kyoto Protocol would put an unfair burden on developed countries, particularly the United States. In order for the Senate to ratify Kyoto and agree on legislation to implement it, developing countries would need to share in reductions, which they were not required to do.
b. RATIFICATION OF THE KYOTO PROTOCOL
夫妻如何相处In 2004, Russia ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and it went into effect. See Doyle, supra. A key consideration in Russia’s decision to ratify the Protocol was its position as a likely net exporter of CO2 allowances, after the collap of Soviet-era industries reduced GHG emissions in the nation. In Moscow, Russian electricity giant Unified Energy, which accounts for 2 percent of world GHG emissions, said it was clo to signing 30 deals to cut emissions.
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Scientists have stated that the Protocol’s goal of reducing GHG emissions by 5.2 percent from 1990 levels is just a first step, and a cut of at least 60 percent is needed to prevent catastrophic impacts of climate change this century. See Clouds Gather Over Future of Kyoto Climate Pact, Reuters, Feb. 11, 2005. Even if fully implemented, Kyoto would slow rising temperatures by just 0.18 F (0.1 C) by 2
100, according to figures from the IPCC, and this would be a small dent in rising temperatures compared to the IPCC’s forecasts of an overall ri of 1.4-5.8 degrees Celsius this century. See IPCC 2001 Report, supra.
NOTES AND COMMENTS
1. Canada announced in early 2005 that it would spend between $8-10 billion (Canadian) by 2012 on its efforts to meet targets under the Kyoto Protocol. The majority of the money would be split into two projects: a $1 billion Climate Change Fund to create an emissions credit-trading program for private industry and a partnership fund for provincial clean-air efforts. Canadians also would be encouraged to reduce their energy consumption, and oil, gas and other large industries would cut GHG emissions with new clean-air equipment. CBC News Online, Apr. 8, 2005. Emissions trading is discusd further in the next ction.
2. The Kyoto Protocol gave support to “joint implementation,” a system where industrialized countries receive benefits from helping developing countries with their emissions reduction commitments. Kyoto Protocol Annex I countries can undertake emissions reduction projects in other Annex I countries and receive a negotiated share of the emissions reductions generated by the proje
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cts. Some commentators suggest that this may prent a “free-rider” problem. See Hanafi, supra at 460, 467-69. For additional commentary on joint implementation, e Note: Joint Implementation: Legal and Institutional Issues for an Effective International Program to Combat Climate Change, 22 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 441 (1998).
3. The Kyoto Protocol created the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to foster collaborative projects to reduce emissions or quester carbon in developing countries. It allows an industrialized country that must reduce its emissions under the Protocol (an Annex I country) to invest in a project in a developing country without a target (non-Annex I), and claim credit for the emissions that the project achieves (known in CDM parlance as “Certified Emission Reductions”). In theory, this is done if it is easier and cheaper for
