The
1992 United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil is most known for establishing the concept of “sustainable
development,” a widely known, broadly defined idea that calls for environmental
and social consideration during economic development. However, this same conference created
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), arguably
the most important international environmental body. Three years later, the UNFCCC met in
Berlin, Germany for the first Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC—COP1. This conference set the stage for
international climate change discussions by determining national and global greenhouse
emission targets with the hopes that the international community will be able
to successfully combat climate change. In 1997, COP3 convened in Kyoto, Japan
to establish legally binding emissions targets for all parties. At the time, what transpired was
thought to be one of the most comprehensive and successful international
environmental agreements to date.
 |
Figure 2: IPCC Carbon Limit and Expected
Temperature Increases |
estimates that, with current laws in place, “energy-related carbon dioxide emissions from developing
countries will be 127 percent higher than in the world's most developed
economies by 2040,” “carbon emissions will grow 46 percent in 2040 from a 2010
baseline,” and “energy-related emissions will total around 45.5 billion tonnes
in 2040, up from a reference level of 31.2 billion tonnes in 2010.” The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) released their fifth assessment report on climate change this
year. In it, the IPCC formally
endorsed a cap on carbon emissions, stating that no more than one trillion tons
of carbon can be emitted without irreversible changes. Figure 2 on page 11 shows this limit. There is currently almost one-half of
one trillion tons of carbon that have been emitted and the IPCC expects that
the trillion ton will be emitted in 2040.
The UNFCCC defines the Kyoto Protocol as “an
international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change, which commits its Parties
by setting internationally binding emission reduction targets.” As stated above, these agreements are
legally binding to the signatory countries and those that ratify the Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol also recognizes that
developed nations, such as the United States, China, certain European Union
nations and Canada, among others, are primarily responsible for anthropogenic greenhouse
emissions that have exacerbated climate change and its negative impacts on the
planet and its peoples. However, it was not until 2005 when Russia
and Canada ratified the Kyoto Protocol that it was brought into effect.
There
were 192 parties and 83 signatories to the Kyoto Protocol, including the United
States. Each state pledged a
specific target emissions reduction based off of a certain year. However, of the 192 parties, only one
did not ratify the Protocol—the United States of America. Politics, special interests and the
reoccurring resistance to international governance of U.S. policy drove this
inaction by the United States. At the time, not only was it an
embarrassment that the United States did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, but the
United Kingdom, France, Israel, North Korea, China, Iran, Cuba, Iraq and
Somalia – our closest allies, political adversaries and wartime opponents – did,
many of which called on the United States to join them.
The
United States not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol would eventually be a blow to
the treaty in itself. However, the
treaty was doomed from the start.
Based off of unrealistic expectations and models, the Kyoto Protocol
aimed to be something that it could never be and has proven to be an
ineffective tool in combating climate change. Certainly some signatory states have reduced their overall
emissions, but the states that the treaty wanted to target – the heavily
emitting, developed nations – have barely reduced emissions, if at all. In fact, global carbon emissions have
increase nearly 20 ppmv (parts per million volume)—around 379 ppmv in 2005 to
395 ppmv in 2013. In addition, year-to-year emissions
have been exponentially increasing, proving yet again that this treaty has been
ineffective.
Oxford
University Professor Steve Rayner suggests that the Kyoto Protocol’s design set
it up to fail. He argues that it was set up based off
of three analogous systems with similar objectives, but which all had extremely
different components: (1) Ozone Depletion: Kyoto attempted to mimic the
successful chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) reduction of the Montreal Protocol. However, CFCs are a fairly simple agent,
are artificial and had readily available substitutes. In addition, only a limited number of nations and companies
manufactured and used CFCs. (2) U.S. EPA Sulfur Cap-and-Trade
Program: this market-based approach was successful in reducing sulfur levels,
but was once again limited to a limited number of firms and was overseen by one
authority. (3) Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty:
Rayner suggests that then-Vice President Al Gore’s concept of a gradual
reduction of nuclear weapons was adopted for the Kyoto Protocol to gradually
reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The issue with the Kyoto
Protocol’s design is that these systems are not applicable at an international
level, nor are they applicable to manage the complex system of greenhouse gas
emissions in Kyoto. Trying to
mimic the Montreal Protocol failed because there are no readily available
substitutes that can be implemented in the short-term and on a global
scale. Secondly, instead of a
small number of firms that used and manufactured CFCs, there are many nations
that emit greenhouse gases. For
Rayner’s second point, the sulfur program targeted one gas, whereas Kyoto
targeted six in the 1997 version. The EPA was also the sole oversight
body to the program. The Kyoto
Protocol relies on each member state to regulate it’s greenhouse gas emissions
to ensure that it will meet the agreed upon reduction target. There is no international enforcer to
regulate each state’s success or failure to meet the target. Finally, his third point suggests that
Kyoto attempted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a similar way to reducing
the number of nuclear warheads. In
theory, this concept may have seemed plausible, but in practice it is not
realistic. The number of warheads
does not fluctuate in a manner similar to greenhouse gases. Therefore, a gradual reduction cannot
be relied on when the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is not
steady.
Rayner
is not alone to suggest that the Kyoto Protocol’s design was a failure. Dieter Helm, economist and professor at
Oxford University, argues that the Kyoto Protocol was founded on the idea that
“the developed countries accept caps on
carbon production from power stations, industrial installations and the like
within their borders. Developing countries take measures but need not apply
caps.” Helm suggests that there are three
fundamental issues with Kyoto: (1) it does not take into account carbon
consumption; (2) it neglects the issue of coal; and (3) the issue of free
riding. The Kyoto Protocol, Helm states,
focuses on carbon production, which is the carbon a nation emits. However, carbon consumption is the
amount of carbon in the goods and services that a nation consumes and may be
more of an issue than carbon production.
He cites an example from the United Kingdom: “from 1990 to 2005, its
carbon production fell by around 15%. But carbon consumption went up by around 19% once
the carbon embedded in imports is taken into account.” These carbon imports are products that
are developed by the high-carbon emitting China and India. Helm states that it is for this reason
that emissions can dramatically reduce in Europe while dramatically increasing
globally. This is exactly what has been observed;
many EU nations were near or met their 2012 reduction target even though global
emissions for carbon increased.
The
Kyoto Protocol also fails to mention coal. As one of the dirtiest forms of energy, “coal has risen from
supplying 25% of the world’s primary energy [since the 1990’s] to 30% now.” China and India are most at fault for
using coal; Helm states that China accounts for 50% of the global coal trade,
and that 80% of their energy production is from coal-fired power plants. China and India also add a combined
three coal-fired power plants to their energy generation portfolios each week. The EU is also guilty of using
increasing amounts of coal due to the high prices of cleaner natural gas. The United States, a non-ratifying Kyoto
state, has reduced its reliance of coal and replaced it with natural gas, which
has assisted in reducing its carbon emissions. However, by not addressing the use of
coal at a global level, the Kyoto Protocol neglects to address the threat of a
significant increase in coal-fired energy generation by 2020, resulting in
continued rise in greenhouse gas levels.
Free
riding is a concept that suggests if certain nations act on an initiative and
are successful, it will than reduce or eliminate the incentive for other
nations to act on the same issue and contribute to the overall objective. Because some nations place a cap on the
price of carbon and others do not, certain nations do not have to pay for the
price of carbon and will benefit from other nations spending money to meet a
certain target emissions level.
The result, as Helm suggests, is a trade distortion that favors the
countries without a capped carbon price.
The
overlying concept from these two experts is that the design of the Kyoto
Protocol ultimately set this treaty, those that ratified it and the overall
objective up for failure. Had
Kyoto’s strategy actually worked, emissions levels would have dropped 5% below
1990 levels at the end of 2012. Instead emissions have continued to
increase.
Figure 1: Continued Rise in Carbon Emissions
The economic crisis of
2008 certainly did not help the international effort to reduce emissions. Many nations, including the United
States, were looking for ways to increase economic productivity and, in an
attempt to do so, used fossil fuel energy to run their economies. However, the crisis was not the sole
reason for failure—Kyoto was failing before 2008, and continues to fail after
the crisis. Continued emissions
prior to, and after 2008 can be observed in Figure 1.
In
2012, the UNFCCC met once again in Doha, Qatar for COP18. This conference added an amendment to
the Kyoto Protocol, which would allow for its continued implementation into the
future, which is known as the Doha Amendment. However, two years before the
conference, Japan and Russia stated that they would not be participating in the
second commitment period, and in 2011 Canada completely withdrew from the Kyoto
Protocol. Three of the world’s largest
emitters joined the United States in not having an emissions agreement with the
rest of the international community, arguing that the Kyoto Protocol does not require developing nations, including
China, to set emission reduction targets.
The
exit of Russia, Japan and Canada may be another example of the ineffectiveness
of the Kyoto Protocol. One must
ask, if not the Kyoto Protocol, than what? There is not a simple answer to that question, just as there
is not one answer to solving climate change. Certainly the current system is not working as it had hoped
to be, and international conferences have been useless in trying to reach to an
agreement on climate policy (Durban, Rio+20 and Warsaw).,
,
In addition, the United States, Canada,
Russia and Japan all stated that they would not join any new international
emissions agreement or reform to the Kyoto Protocol. To an extent, it is understandable why
the United States et al. would not want to be tied down to what may be another
inevitable failure. However, the
United States is the number two greenhouse gas emitter in the world,
and to neglect the responsibility it has to fix the damage it has greatly
contributed to is irresponsible. At some point within the next five to ten
years, an international agreement to mitigate the effects of climate change and
the components that drive it will have to be established. Said agreement will not be similar to
Kyoto, nor will it try and apply regional or national policies at an
international level. This
agreement will need to be unique and considerate of the socio-economic
inequalities and the imperativeness of short-term results.
Dieter
Helm believes that any international agreement must have in place a tax on
carbon consumption. It is clear that by designing an
agreement on the idea of pricing carbon production, global emission levels are
not actually reduced. However, by basing
the price off of consumption, an incentive to correct any inequalities in
carbon pricing by placing import “border taxes” is established. These taxes, he suggests, will also
incentivize the exporting country to better price carbon in their country and
may even drive the transition from coal generation to natural gas generation
since natural gas emits less carbon than coal.
Steve
Rayner suggests that aside from carbon mitigation, adaptation must be a top
priority to any agreement. Many nations are already experiencing
the effects of climate change. A
common concept when recovering from a disaster is to rebuild what was lost
where it was before the storm.
However, this does not solve the problem. After Hurricane Sandy devastated New Jersey, Governor Chris
Christie had the boardwalks be rebuilt in the same spot where it was destroyed.
Houses and communities that are lost due to flooding from intense rains or
tropical storms are rebuilt where they once stood. Cities continue to build closer to the ocean and this will
only make matters worse when another storm impacts the area, or when sea levels
eventually rise too high.
Adaptation calls for preparing island nations for sea level rise, and
relocating people if necessary. It
also calls for better city planning and restoration planning if something is
lost in a disaster. The seas are
rising and will continue to rise, regions will become drier and wetter, and
storms will become stronger, but it is a matter of ensuring the thousands of
coastal cities and communities are adapting to the current changes in climate
and are prepared for the future ones.
A
main argument amongst the developing nations is that they have the right to
emit carbon attempting to establish or grow their economy just as the current
developed nations had to do decades ago to get where they are today. This is logical and understandable,
however it is not realistic. The
planet cannot afford to have the level of atmospheric CO2 increase
another 100 ppmv as a result of the developing nation’s Industrial Revolution
equivalent. The U.S. Energy
Information Administration
To
address these concerns, developed nations must agree to act and assist the
developing nations establish an economy without having to do through historical
industrial methods. This new
agreement may include financial assistance to create cleaner power plants that
use natural gas instead of the coal, oil, which many developing nations currently
rely on. As seen in the United
States, an economy that uses more natural gas than coal and oil can emit far
fewer carbon emissions. In
addition, by not having to pay as much of a cost for carbon, developing nations
will be able to transition to alternative forms of energy faster. A larger concern is that 1.6 billion
people do not have access to reliable energy and nearly three billion are still
reliant on biomass (wood) and coal for fuel. In a world that is and will be dependent
on reducing carbon emissions and using the cleanest technology possible, these
methods are not acceptable and can be addressed though foreign development
assistance.
An
emissions limit cannot be included in any agreement. It has proven to be highly unsuccessful in the Kyoto
Protocol and, at least at the international level, is not an effective
management tool. Economist
G. Cornelis van Kooten from the University of Victoria in British Columbia
suggests, “to mitigate climate change, it will be necessary for countries to
reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by some one-half of what they were in
1990. Emission reductions on that scale are simply unrealistic, while the
ability and will of countries actually to make such significant cuts is likely
weak.” In addition, any agreement that
includes emission targets automatically eliminates the United States, Japan and
Russia from any involvement. As
some of the largest emitters in the world, it is important to have an agreement
that they will be involved in, even if these states do not ratify it. To do so, emissions reductions must be
left to the state itself and alternative measures must be taken at the
international level.
Another
key factor in a potential international agreement is to have a single authority
that oversees all operations. This
may require an entirely new branch of the United Nations. Just as there are international organizations
that oversee international trades and tariffs, similar system will be important
to this agreement since there will be a carbon taxing system. Although the taxes will be implemented
by each member state, an international organization can ensure that everything
the taxes are legal. In addition,
as part of this agreement, portions of the revenue generated through these
taxes could go towards domestic mitigation technologies or to investments in
developing nations. This
overseeing body will also monitor the situations in developing nations,
adaptation plans and the domestic policies of member states that may counter
any progress.
It
is not likely that the United States and other defect nations would opt to join
this, or any, international climate agreement. Yet for a future agreement to be in any way successful, it
cannot be anything similar to the Kyoto Protocol. It is clear that the overall success of the Kyoto Protocol
has been minimal at best. Many
nations have been and will struggle to come close to their emissions
targets. At this point, due to the
failure of the Kyoto Protocol, alternative measures must be taken to mitigate
climate change. While the United
States has been somewhat successful reducing it’s overall emissions, it still
exports carbon rich fossil fuels to other nations, simply passing along the
problem to others. Establishing
emission reduction targets are politically, economically and practically
unrealistic for most nations. The
international community must agree on a new strategy that will have similar, if
not better, impacts on greenhouse gas emissions. By placing a tax on carbon, assisting developing nations
grow their economy without using dirty technology, investing in green
technology and adapting the international community to the current and future
climate changes, an agreement that is a viable option for nations that are
historically skeptical of international environmental agreements may be made.
United Nations. "Gateway
to the UN System's Work on Climate Change - The UN Climate Change Convention
and the Kyoto Protocol." UN News Center. http://www.un.org/wcm/content/site/climatechange/pages/gateway/the
negotiations/the-un-climate-change-convention-and-the-kyoto-protocol
(accessed December 13, 2013).
United Nations. "Gateway
to the UN System's Work on Climate Change - The UN Climate Change Convention
and the Kyoto Protocol." UN News Center.
http://www.un.org/wcm/content/site/climatechange/pages/gateway/the-
negotiations/the-un-climate-change-convention-and-the-kyoto-protocol
(accessed December 13, 2013).
United Nations. "Gateway to the UN
System's Work on Climate Change - The UN Climate Change Convention
and the Kyoto Protocol." UN News Center.
http://www.un.org/wcm/content/site/climatechange/pages/gateway/the-
negotiations/the-un-climate-change-convention-and-the-kyoto-protocol
(accessed December 13, 2013).
