Table Of Contents 2.rtf

International concern over the environmental impacts of the world's uncontrolled use of coal, oil and gas has grown in the second half of the twentieth century. The damage caused to plants, animals and buildings by acid rain and the effects on human health of poor air quality and smog have led to a raft of national, regional and international agreements aimed at controlling these problems by cutting emissions of the gases which cause them.

Growing scientific urgency

The emergence of a scientific consensus on the causes and impacts of climate change has driven the development of policies aimed at tackling the problem both nationally and internationally. In late 1988, two United Nations agencies, the UN Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organisation, set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This brought together scientific experts from all over the world to assess the science of climate change, its impacts and the strategies needed to respond to it.

The IPCC's first report, known as the First Assessment Report, was agreed in August 1990, despite heavy pressure to block its publication from oil producing countries and industry. Some of its key conclusions are:

“We are certain ... emissions resulting from human activities are substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gases... These increases will enhance the greenhouse effect, resulting on average in an additional warming of the Earth’s surface ...” “we predict ... a rate of increase of global mean temperature during the next century... greater than that seen over the past 10,000 years.”

In addition, the report found that immediate 60 to 80 per cent cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide would be needed to stabilise carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere at today’s levels.

An international climate change treaty agreed in record time

The strength of the IPCC's findings led to widespread agreement among countries that the only way to deal effectively with the issue of climate change was by means of an international treaty, or convention. In November 1990, the United Nations General Assembly agreed to establish a process aimed at negotiating and adopting an international climate convention to be ready for countries to sign at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992.

Annex I of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

Australia

Austria

Belarus*

Belgium

Bulgaria*

Canada

Croatia*

Czech Republic*

Denmark

European Community

Estonia*

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Hungary*

Iceland

Ireland

Italy

Japan

Latvia*

Liechtenstein

Lithuania*

Luxembourg

Monaco

Netherlands

New Zealand

Norway

Poland*

Portugal

Romania*

Russian Federation*

Slovakia*

Slovenia*

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

Turkey

Ukraine*

United Kingdom of

Great Britain

and Northern Ireland

USA

*Countries that are undergoing the process of transition to a market economy and with Annex I as amended at COP3 (Decision 4/CP.3)

Lack of action by the industrialised world

The Convention required the first meeting of the Parties to the Convention (the first Conference of the Parties, known as COP1) to review the adequacy of the commitment to return emissions to1990 levels by 2000. In the lead up to COP1 it became clear that few OECD countries (basically the industrialised Western nations) were making sufficient efforts and most were failing to achieve the commitment. Projections of future emissions provided by the industrialised countries in fact showed that carbon dioxide emissions in most of the OECD countries were continuing to rise sharply as a result of increasing fossil fuel use.

A new negotiating process set up

In the end, although the Parties at COP1, held in Berlin in March/April 1995, agreed that the Convention's greenhouse gas commitments for the Annex I countries were inadequate, they failed to agree new concrete emission targets. Instead, in a document known as 'the Berlin Mandate', they agreed merely to set up a new negotiating process whose main purpose was to strengthen the commitments by agreeing greenhouse gas limitation and reduction targets to be included in a legal instrument, with the aim of adopting the instrument at the third Conference of the Parties.

Strong scientific consensus

At the end of 1995, the IPCC agreed its Second Assessment Report. This involved over 2,500 scientists and experts, and its historic conclusions included the statement that:

"The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate -that is we are already seeing the first signs of climate change".

A wide range of impacts of climate change on human society and on natural ecosystems were found for just a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere above pre-industrial levels. The IPCC predicts that this doubling could occur as early as 2030 if measures to reduce emissions are not implemented. Some of the Second Assessment Report's findings were:

“Most systems are sensitive to climate change. Natural ecological systems, socio-economic systems, and human health are all sensitive to both the magnitude and the rate of climate change.”

“...Potentially serious changes have been identified, including an increase in some regions in the incidence of extreme high-temperature events, floods and droughts, with resultant consequences for fires, pest outbreaks, and ecosystem composition, structure and functioning, including primary productivity"

Specifically on human health the IPCC found that:

"Climate change is likely to have wide ranging and mostly adverse effect on human health, with significant loss of life."

Forests are projected to suffer significant damage:

“a substantial fraction (a global average of one-third, varying by region from one-seventh to two-thirds) of the existing forested area of the world will undergo major changes” and “...entire forest types may disappear..”

Some of the world's poorest developing countries may suffer the most from the impacts of climate change:

“There may be increased risk of hunger and famine in some locations; many of the world’s poorest people - particularly those living in subtropical and tropical areas and dependent on isolated agricultural systems in semi-arid and arid regions - are most at risk of increased hunger. Many of these at risk populations are found in sub Saharan Africa; south, east, and Southeast Asia; and tropical areas of Latin America, as well as some Pacific island nations..”

It is not surprising therefore that the IPCC found that early action is required and that emission reductions are possible:

“Failure to adopt policies as early as possible to encourage efficient replacement investments at the end of the economic life of plant and equipment (i.e., at the point of capital stock turnover) impose an economic cost to society.”

“Significant reductions in net greenhouse gas emissions are technically possible and can be economically feasible”.

Negotiating the Kyoto Protocol

The strength of the IPCC's findings and the widespread scientific consensus on climate change were major forces during the negotiations which culminated in the Kyoto Protocol. The acceptance of the science by countries meant that there were instead two main issues upon which debate focused during the negotiations. The first was the impacts of action by industrialised countries to reduce their emissions and the second was the issue of developing country action to limit the growth in their emissions.

Industrialised country action needed now

The biggest source of emissions in the developed world is the burning of fossil fuels to provide energy for domestic use, transport and industry. Action to cut emissions therefore requires energy to be used more efficiently and a switch to renewable energy systems such as solar and wind. Countries which are highly dependent on fossil fuels and those such as the OPEC countries, which produce fossil fuels, as well as powerful interests from the fossil fuel and industrial sectors, lobbied intensively throughout the negotiations to prevent agreement on emission reductions, stressing the adverse impacts such reductions would have on national economies and global economic growth.

Industrialised countries still the major culprits

Although the Berlin Mandate specifically stated that there should be no new commitments for the non-Annex I developing countries, some OECD countries, particularly the USA, as well as the US fossil fuel lobby, argued that action by the developed countries would be overwhelmed by projected increases in emissions in the developing countries, and that the Protocol must therefore introduce, at a minimum, a timeframe for the introduction of emission commitments for developing countries.

It is the developed countries whose emissions since the Industrial Revolution have caused the climate change problem we are currently facing. It is therefore the responsibility of the developed countries to take action first. Many developing countries are already taking substantial action to reduce their emissions growth, and some have done much more to reduce their emissions than many industrialised nations. Developing countries should not be expected to take on board commitments to limit their emission growth until the industrialised countries have met their responsibilities.

The Kyoto Protocol to the Climate Convention - a new legal instrument

The new protocol, known officially as the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, was adopted in Kyoto, Japan on 11 December 1997 at the third Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC.

However, the Kyoto Protocol is a far from simple document. Not only the commitments themselves but also the mechanisms by which the developed country Parties may achieve them are extremely complex. Although countries recognise the need to cut global emissions of carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases to prevent dangerous global warming, many developed countries, aided by intensive public pressure from the fossil fuel industry, refused during the negotiations to agree to the kinds of cuts in their domestic greenhouse gas emissions which the science demands. The result was commitments in the Protocol which fall far short of what is really needed to protect the earth from major climatic changes.

WHY ARE THE EMISSION COMMITMENTS INADEQUATE?

What are the major sources of greenhouse gases?

The most important greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide (CO2), and its biggest source by far is the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) for energy. Six billion tonnes of carbon are released as carbon dioxide every year from this source. Burning fossil fuels also gives off two other greenhouse gases: methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). Carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are also given off as a result of deforestation, removal of grassland cover and agricultural practices. Deforestation is responsible for about 1.6 billion tonnes of carbon released as CO2 per year. Methane is also emitted during the management and disposal of waste.

Although molecule for molecule, methane, nitrous oxide, HFCs, PFCs and SF6 are more powerful greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide, they are not as significant as CO2 because they are emitted in much smaller quantities. The use of fossil fuels is by far the most important source of greenhouse gases. In the period 1990-1995, fossil fuel use was responsible for nearly 60 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions.

How deep do emission reductions need to be?

Ecological limits

The ultimate objective of the Kyoto Protocol is the same as that of its parent convention, the UNFCCC. This is found in Article 2 of the Convention and states that greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere must be stabilised at a level "that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system", and that this level should be achieved "within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner".

In 1990, the United Nations Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases (AGGG) published environmental targets which stated that in order to minimise the risk to species, ecosystems and food production, temperature rise should be restricted to a maximum of 1oC above the pre-industrial level, the rate of temperature rise should be a maximum of 0.1oC per decade and the rate of sea level rise should be a maximum of 20mm per decade. Since then, other scientific research has been published which supports the AGGG's targets.

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