The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialised countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These amount to an average of 5% against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008–2012.

The major distinction between the Protocol and the Convention is that, while the Convention encouraged industrialised countries to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions, the Protocol commits them to do so.

Recognising that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, the Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’.

The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997, and entered into force on 16 February 2005. To date, 182 Parties of the Convention have ratified its Protocol. The detailed rules for the implementation of the Protocol were adopted at COP 7 in Marrakesh in 2001, and are called the ‘Marrakesh Accords’.

The Kyoto mechanisms

Under the Treaty, countries must meet their targets primarily through national measures. However, the Kyoto Protocol offers them an additional means of meeting their targets by way of three international market-based mechanisms.