Kyoto Protocol & Global Warming

What is the Kyoto Protocol?

The Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change is an international treaty on global warming.

Countries which ratify/approve/sanction this protocol are committed to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases (Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and three halocarbons used as substitutes for ozone-damaging chlorofluorocarbons. All of these gases are blamed for the greenhouse effect).

161 nations came together in December 1997 at Kyoto, Japan to conclude on an agreement to save the planet from global warming. Out of these, 141 countries have ratified it, legally binding themselves to reduce their emissions of these six greenhouse gases by 2012.

The objective is the "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous interference with the climate system which affects all mankind - that is you, me and your future seeds"

But there are those who oppose this treaty. The two major countries currently opposed to the treaty are the USA and Australia (surprised?), based on the public statements of both governments. They skeptically think that the Kyoto is a scheme to either retard the growth of the world's industrial democracies or to transfer wealth to the third world in what they claim is a global conspiracy initiative.

So what did they do?
A few weeks ago on July 28, 2005, on the sideline of an ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) meeting at Vientiane, Laos, the USA, Australia, together with China, India, Japan and South Korea unveiled their own six-nation pact - using their own written so-called constitutions - and came up with the "Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate".
The pact allows these countries to set their goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions individually, but with no enforcement mechanism. Supporters of the pact see it as complementing the Kyoto Protocol whilst being more flexible whilst critics have said the pact will be ineffective without any measures to enforce it - similar to a toothless tiger.
For your information, China, India, Japan and South Korea - together are responsible for 48% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

Some say that such an alternative pact to the Kyoto has serious ulterior motives (more like protecting their own economic progress from being impeded).

Environmentalists who have gone through the Vientiane pact highlighted to us that the agreement does not identify any concrete goals to reduce global warming. It does not set any emissions targets for countries and cannot even be called a pact by itself. (As compared to the Kyoto Protocol, each country had an individual reduction target and together to achieve the world-wide reduction of 5.2 percent.) They say, it is more of just a vision statement.

"[The Asia-Pacific pact] is no substitute for agreements like the Kyoto Protocol and we do not expect it to have a real impact on climate change," the European Commission's environment spokeswoman Barbara Helferrich told BBC News.





The reply from these six nations is that this November in Adelaide, they would be able to commence efforts to detail the cooperation and consensus on advanced technologies as the means to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Whatever that means, nobody knows. Hmm...hmm. Let's wait and see this November whether this is going to be a real thing or just hot air.

Whatever it is, the world leaders must never put individual nation's agenda before the preservation of planet Earth. The whole world need to act positively and constructively in unison together - instead of "playing Chinese Tai Chi" - or face the wrath of an increasingly unstable environment.

Note:
The official website of the Kyoto Protocol = http://www.cop3.org/