The Kyoto Agreement - Case Study Example

The Kyoto Agreement (also referred to as the Kyoto Protocol), was the first and historic legally binding agreement by the world’s industrialized nations that committed to the reduction in the emissions of six greenhouse gases as a means of preventing global warming. The Kyoto Agreement is a Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which went beyond encouraging industrialized countries to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions to actually securing their commitment to do so.

The protocol was adopted on 11 December 1997 at the third United Nations Convention on Climate Change in Kyoto, Japan, and came into force on 16 February 2005. According to many commentators at the time such as Barrett (1998), the Kyoto Protocol heralded a new era in international cooperation on climate change as it was the first international treaty of its kind.This essay will evaluate the Kyoto Protocol as an international regime and its effectiveness in achieving the goals of climate change.

The essay will first give a background to the Kyoto Protocol by outlining the concerns that underpinned the formation of the UNFCCC and demonstrate how the protocol was formulated as an international legal response to the problem of global warming. the essay will then describe the mechanisms and the coverage of the Kyoto Protocol. Significantly, the essay will examine the decision by the U.S to repudiate or refuse to ratify the Protocol and the economic and political implications the U.S refusal has on the performance of the Protocol.

The essay will then evaluate the performance of the Kyoto Protocol and its implications for subsequent international regimes and institutions.BackgroundThe UNFCCC and Global WarmingThe UNFCCC is an international treaty formed at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED or the Earth Summit). The principal motivation for the delegates of the countries who subscribed to the UNFCCC was the increasing concern over scientific evidence that had established the link between global warming or climate change and the emission of greenhouse gases (Guruswamy 2000).

Such evidence was collected and documented by The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which was composed mainly of climate change scientists jointly formed in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). The mandate of the IPCC was to investigate the phenomenon of global warming and to report on the effects and impacts of the phenomenon on the earth (Guruswamy 2000).

In its initial report in 1990 and subsequent assessments in 1992, 1994 and 1995, the IPCC concluded that global climate change had resulted in an overall increase in the average temperature of the earth’s surface. According to the IPCC, the average temperature of the earth’s surface had increased exponentially by about 0.74 degrees over the previous two centuries and had been projected to increase by 1.8 to 4 C by the year 2100. The IPCC (1995) reported scientific consensus on the prediction that unless there were major changes on climate change policy, there would be an increase in the mean global temperature would double to average at 2.

5 C by 2100 (IPCC 1995). The IPCC and other environmental lobby groups identified the increased accumulation of long lived greenhouse gasses in the earth’s atmosphere as the major culprit. These include carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, hydro-fluorocarbons, per-fluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride (Guruswamy 2000, IPCC 1995). Greenhouse gases, in their normal or natural levels, help maintain and support life on earth by trapping infrared radiation which warms the surface temperature while simultaneously allowing excess heat to escape (the greenhouse effect).

According to the IPCC (1995), the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has been gradually increasing over the last two centuries. Particularly, the increased accumulation of carbon dioxide has disrupted the balance of infrared radiation to space which implies that the earth retains more infrared energy than it radiates to space-the greenhouse effect. According to Guruswamy (2000), there was scientific consensus on the fact that greenhouse effect has contributed to global warming or an increase in the average global surface temperature.

However, there was contention over the claim that the increased accumulation of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere was principally due anthropogenic or human-activity based emissions. The main thrust of the IPCC’s reports was that greenhouse gas accumulation was due to human activities such as deforestation for human settlement, farming methods using chemical pesticides and the massive consumption of fossil fuels such as oil and coal to meet the ever-growing global energy demands.

For instance, Abrahamson (1989) estimates that the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil about six billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Although this is a relatively small proportion of total carbon stocks, it is sufficient to compromise the environmental balance of greenhouse gases, trapping in more infrared radiation and increasing surface temperatures. Moffat (1997) also demonstrates that forests can serve as carbon dioxide “sponges”, taking up almost as much carbon dioxide during photosynthesis as they do when respiring.

The implication of such studies is that human activities such as deforestation and lumbering that deplete the global forest stocks and other carbon sinks actually contribute to greenhouse warming. However, there are also dissenting scientists within and outside of the IPCC who have discredited the claim that anthropogenic emissions bear principal responsibility for global warming (Guruswamy 2000). These dissenting opinions have been based on evidence that human intervention has not made a significant contribution to global warming and that the global average temperature has been increasing independent of human activities.

They also contend the measurement and prediction of surface temperatures and refute the claims that the anticipated temperature rise is historically unprecedented (Guruswamy 2000). Impact of Global Warming In the IPCC assessment reports of 1990 and 1992, the working group on impacts outlined the various predicted effects of rising global temperatures on the planet. The IPCC singled out areas under stress, mainly developing countries, and water resources as the two biggest casualties of climate change (IPCC 1995).

The major conclusions of the working group on impacts was that rising global temperatures would adversely affect agriculture and forestry, natural terrestrial ecosystems, hydrology and water resources, human settlements, energy, transport and industrial sectors, human health and air quality, oceans and coastal zones, seasonal snow cover, ice and permafrost.