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The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol provide the international framework for combating climate change.The UNFCCC, the first international measure created to address the problem, was adopted in May 1992 and came into force in March 1994. So far 189 governments - almost all governments in the world - have ratified it. It obliges its Parties to establish national programmes for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to submit regular reports. It also requires industrialised countries among the Parties - but not developing countries - to stabilise their greenhouse gas emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000. The UNFCCC Parties meet annually to review progress and discuss further measures, and a number of global monitoring and reporting mechanisms are in place to keep track of greenhouse gas emissions.
When they adopted the UNFCCC, governments knew that the commitments would not be sufficient to seriously tackle climate change. On 11 December 1997, in the Japanese town of Kyoto, they took a further step and adopted a protocol to the UNFCCC: the Kyoto Protocol. Building on the UNFCCC framework, the Protocol sets legally binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions from initially 38 industrialised countries and the European Community (the EU-15). It also introduces innovative market-based implementation mechanisms – known as the Kyoto flexible mechanisms – aimed at keeping the cost of curbing emissions low.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, industrialised countries are required to reduce their emissions of six greenhouse gases (CO2, which is the most important, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride) to around 5% below the 1990 level during the first Kyoto Protocol “commitment period” from 2008 to 2012. A five-year commitment period was chosen rather than a single target year to smooth out annual fluctuations in emissions due to uncontrollable factors such as weather. There are no emissions targets for developing countries.
The Kyoto Protocol came into force on 16 February 2005. The rules for its entry into force required that at least 55 Parties to the UNFCCC ratify the Protocol and that those include industrialised countries accounting for at least 55% of the industrialised countries’ CO2 emissions in 1990. The first threshold was achieved in 1998. On 18 November 2004, Russia (responsible for 17.4% of the industrialised countries’ emissions in 1990) ratified the Protocol, guaranteeing the 55% emission threshold. The Protocol entered into force 90 days later, meaning that the commitments taken on by its Parties became legally binding.
As of 6 February 2006, 160 countries and the European Community had ratified the Protocol. Three countries that had originally signed the treaty had not ratified: the US has rejected the Protocol; Australia has decided not to ratify it; and Monaco has not yet ratified. This means that 35 developed countries and the European Community are now obliged to reach their Kyoto targets.
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