Month: February 2020

The Kyoto Protocol was the first international climate agreement. The Protocol was first adopted by Kyoto, Japan in 1997 with the objective of reducing CO2 emissions. Unlike the other climate agreements that have been evaluated thus far, the Kyoto Protocol didn’t leave concrete entry space or guidelines for developing countries to join in. 

This piece of climate legislation was on the stricter side given the political time period it was ratified in. Under the Protocol Developed, industrialized countries made promises to reduce their annual hydrocarbon emissions by an average of 5.2% by the year 2012. Collectively this number would represent about 29% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Countries still set their own individual hydrocarbon emission goals. The European Union, and the countries it is comprised of, pledged to cut emissions by 8% while the U.S. and Canada promised to reduce their emissions by 7% all by 2012.

What made the Kyoto Protocol so strict was that If a country emitted more hydrocarbons than its arbitrary goal allowed, then that country would be penalized by being forced to take a harder emissions goal the following goal period. In practice, this would mean that if the United States only managed to reduce greenhouse emission by 6% in 2012, and our goal was 7%, then the following year they would be asked to reduce it by 8% by 2020.

Unlike some of the other agreements evaluated thus far, the Kyoto Protocol allowed Carbon Trading which is the practice of buying and selling carbon emission permits. This meant that a country could pay another country to take some of their carbon reduction goal if they were going to fail to reach it. It was effectively a carbon tax on goals that wouldn’t be met. 

When the first round of hydrocarbon goals came to end in 2012, a net negative environmental impact still occurred. Hydrocarbon emissions were still on the rise. The European Union and its conglomerate managed to meet their goals but both the United States and China fell short, both of whom happen to be the largest carbon-emitting countries. They produced enough greenhouse gases to mitigate any of the progress that was made by nations who met their targets. Ultimately, there was an increase of about 40% in hydrocarbon emissions globally between 1990 and 2009.

In December of 2012, the Doha Amendment was ratified which marked the beginning of the second goal period with new goals assigned. This was a short-lived amendment because in 2015 the United Nations signed the Paris Climate Agreement which had a more feasible framework and acted as a stronger guide for the countries involved.

 

Work Cited

Clark, Duncan. “Has the Kyoto Protocol Made Any Difference to Carbon Emissions?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 26 Nov. 2012, www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2012/nov/26/kyoto-protocol-carbon-emissions.

Tardi, Carla. “The Kyoto Protocol.” Investopedia, Investopedia, 5 Feb. 2020, www.investopedia.com/terms/k/kyoto.asp.

“What Is the Kyoto Protocol?” UNFCCC, unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol.

The Paris Agreement is a monumental environmental accord that has been adopted by 197 nations, present company excluded, with the goal of mitigating climate change. This is done by attempting to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The primary goal of this accord is two-fold, first and foremost it is to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2 degrees celsius, when compared to preindustrial levels. Secondly, it aims to provide the framework to ultimately limit the increase to 1.5 degrees. What makes this climate accord unique is that countries set their own emission goals based on what they believe is feasible. This accord also has parameters for developed countries, the primary greenhouse gas emitters, to assist developing countries in establishing environmentally sustainable infrastructure. 

The United States chose to remove ourselves from the Paris Climate Accord on the basis of it potentially costing upwards of $3 trillion dollars by 2045 and a potential loss of 2.7 million jobs, these numbers were based on a study done in March 2017 which has since debunked. This March 2017 study drastically overestimated the pricing and potential job loss for the United States. More recent studies have suggested that the cost of climate inaction far outweighs the cost of reducing carbon pollution. Studies have suggested the opposite in fact, instead proposing that if the United States failed to meet its Paris climate goals, it could cost the economy as much as $6 trillion in the next 20 years. On a global front, the Worldwide GDP could fall more than 25% by the centuries end, if the goals of the accord aren’t met. By abiding by and over exceeding the Paris climate goals, through more efficient and sustainable infrastructure and clean energy, the global returns on this are projected to be upwards of $19 trillion. 

With 197 nations involved, this is the largest climate saving legislative accord ever established. What has deterred large scale climate change in the past has been the problem of collective action. This is the belief that because country x is C02 minimising, and hurting themselves economically, country y, who isn’t being environmentally conscious will gain an economic advantage. The accord reflects the global reflective belief of the 197 nations involved that climate change is up to us to fight. This casts America’s climate change sceptics, Trump included, in the hot seat, by identifying them as global outliers.

Climate change is the result of human action. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, which is the leading international scientific body studying climate change, the concentration of these greenhouse gases has increased substantially since preindustrial times to a peak that has not been seen in at least 800,000 years. Carbon dioxide, the primary contributor to climate change, is up by 40 percent, nitrous oxide is up by 20 percent, and methane is up by an astronomical 150 percent since 175. All of this is primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels. The IPCC says it’s, “extremely likely” that these increased emissions to blame for the rise in global temperatures since the 1950s. On top of all of this, deforestation and forest degradation, have limited our climate’s ability to combat this increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

Participation in the Paris Climate Accord is voluntary and countries can choose their degree of participation and the ambitiousness of their greenhouse gas reduction goals. Studies have shown that with the current climate goals in place, the accord will fail to meet its limiting increase of 2 degrees celsius by the end of the century. 

 

Citations:

Burke, Marshall, et al. “Large Potential Reduction in Economic Damages under UN Mitigation Targets.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 23 May 2018, www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0071-9.

Denchak, Melissa. “Paris Climate Agreement: Everything You Need to Know.” NRDC, NRDC, 2 Dec. 2019, www.nrdc.org/stories/paris-climate-agreement-everything-you-need-know.

Romm, Joe. “Trump’s Abandonment of Paris Climate Deal to Cost U.S. Economy Trillions, New Study Reveals.” ThinkProgress, 29 May 2018, thinkprogress.org/trump-climate-policies-cost-us-economy-6-trillion-new-study-575120a5870a/.