Kyoto Protocol and Climate Change

Kyoto Protocol and Climate Change

Discernible human influences now extend to other aspects of climate, including ocean warming, continental-average temperatures, temperature extremes and wind patterns" (AR4, 2007).

While the UNFCCC countries are dedicated to thwarting global warming in a theoretical way, the Kyoto Protocol signers, called Annex I parties, are attempting to doing something about it (Kyoto, 1998). Ten years ago they obligated themselves to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average 5% below 1990 levels by 2008-2012 in order to "minimize adverse effects, including the adverse effects of climate change" (Kyoto. 1998). Even though some of these nations may have only reduced their emissions by 5%, others have reduced them by 15%, in order to make the national limitation. As a result, some atmospheric cleanup has been effected in urban areas throughout the world. Global change is discernible and having a negligible effect. It will, however, take many more decades before global warming and other climate changes which are caused by greenhouse gases will begin to turn around.

The Kyoto Protocol includes a "flexible mechanism" which allows under-compensating economies to meet their limitations by purchasing GreenHouse Gas (GHG) emission reductions from those who have overcompensated and have excess allowances. These are called "carbon credits." To produce carbon credits for sale is desirable, compared to being obligated to purchase them because a country is producing too many GHG emissions (EIA, 1998). In the United States, because of the Kyoto Protocol, actual GDP losses are projected to "range from $102 to $437 billion dollars in 2010." Prices of offsets and carbon credits will skyrocket among those nations in the Annex I sector, setting the stage for a failure of the entire project. Seeing how as the effects on climate so far have been negligible, it is not hard to imagine how frustrating it is going to become when the U.S. begins to spend billions on GDP, carbon credits and control devices and positive climate change progresses only slowly (Wojick, 2002).

In 2004 an international ad hoc Detection and Attribution Group looked at "natural drivers such as solar variability and volcanic activity" and decided that a large part of the entire warming trend over the past 50 years could be attributed to GHG increases, which backs up the IPC Third Assessment Report, concluding that "most of the global warming over the past 50 years is likely due to the increase in greenhouse gases" (IAHDAG, 2005, 1291-1314).