The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty negotiated in 1997 that came into force in 2005, requiring industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% below 1990 levels by 2010. It represents the first step toward a global emissions reduction regime to stabilize climate change. A new framework must be negotiated and ratified by 2012 to deliver the stringent reductions recommended by climate scientists to prevent catastrophic impacts.
2. The Kyoto Protocol
• The Kyoto Protocol treaty was negotiated in
December 1997 at the city of Kyoto, Japan and
came into force February 16th, 2005.
• "The Kyoto Protocol is a legally binding
agreement under which industrialized countries
will reduce their collective emissions of
greenhouse gases by 5.2% compared to the
year 1990 (but note that, compared to the
emissions levels that would be expected by
2010 without the Protocol, this target represents
a 29% cut).
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11. The road ahead
• The Kyoto Protocol is generally seen as an important
first step towards a truly global emission reduction
regime that will stabilize GHG emissions, and provides
the essential architecture for any future international
agreement on climate change.
• By the end of the first commitment period of the Kyoto
Protocol in 2012, a new international framework needs
to have been negotiated and ratified that can deliver
the stringent emission reductions
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) has clearly indicated are needed.