The Kyoto Treaty: The Solution to Global Warming?
The solution: The Kyoto Treaty
In 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio, the United Nations decided to act against the climate change that had occupied many minds at the summit. The plan was to use the upcoming Earth Summit in Kyoto to find a solution to the climate change caused by the global warming. In December 1997, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change[9] was held in Kyoto, Japan where every member of the United Nations was represented to find a solution to the problem.
In Kyoto, Nations widely agreed on the conclusion that most scientists had drawn: that humans are the primary cause of global warming. The result of the convention was a treaty that generally stated that the emission of carbon dioxide in the year 2012 should be lowered to an amount 5.2% less than emissions in 1990. The European Union went further and set a target on 8% less than 1990 levels, while the United States of America committed to a 7% cut, and Japan to a 6% cut. Russia and the Ukraine agreed to stabilize at 1990 levels. In fact, that allowed Russia and Ukraine to either increase the emission of carbon dioxide or to sell their emission credits to other countries.
The Kyoto Treaty[10] (also referred to as the Kyoto Protocol) made it possible to trade emissions between countries that had fulfilled their targets and countries still moving towards the target. The treaty received a lot of criticism for this because it would allow large polluting countries to continue polluting. The trading was a necessary step to get support for the treaty from USA, Australia and Japan among others.
The treaty has also been criticized for being much to weak and not demanding a further reduction in the emission of carbon dioxide. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Part of the United Nations) a reduction on 60% is necessary to change anything. However, this was unfortunately not an option to the nations since it would have serious influence on the world economy.
Whether a country conforms with the treaty or not after the ratification will not have any consequences like economic fines and the calculation of each nation's target is done by the nation itself also. At this particular point the treaty is very weak.
The European opinion on the treaty
The general opinion on the treaty in the European Union was that it was much too weak. The European Commissioner of Environmental Issues Ritt Bjerregaard was disappointed about the treaty and has been quoted for saying that the European Union came to Kyoto with a higher target and she had hoped for a more ambitious plan.
The European Union (EU) is the world's second largest emitter of carbon dioxide with a big part of the responsibility placed on Germany. This fact has led the European Union to work towards the biggest reduction among the countries ratifying the Kyoto Treaty. In fact, EU began its work on reducing carbon dioxide emissions in 1991. That is six years before the Kyoto Treaty was produced.
The 1st June 2002, the 15 member countries of EU joined the group of nations that has ratified the Kyoto Treaty. As of the 16th of October these nations included: Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, Romania, Hungary, Norway, Thailand, and Vietnam. It is remarkable to note that highly industrialized nations like United States of America, New Zealand, Australia and Russia still not have ratified3 the treaty although they all signed it during the year of 1998 [11].
There is fear that the rejection of the Kyoto Treaty by USA will produce a competitive disadvantage for the countries ratifying the treaty. Therefore many countries (e.g. Japan) have postponed the ratification of the treaty because they do not want to fall behind on the economic recovery that is expected to be just around the corner.
The US opinion on the treaty
In the United States of America a huge discussion flourished about whether the Kyoto Treaty should be signed and ratified or not. The US also participated in the negotiations of the treaty but many still feared that the treaty was too much and too hard on the economy and that the treaty would intensify the amount of unemployed Americans. This faction of people against the treaty included the Republican Party, labor organizations, and the American business people. On the other side of the discussion the American intellectuals and the Democratic Party was found. The Democratic Party was in possession of the White House at that time with Bill Clinton as President and Al Gore as Vice President.
The Republicans found that a cut in emissions of carbon dioxide would lead to a cut in the energy usage and that would have a serious impact on the economy since energy is what is used for production of goods to the markets. During the debate, the Republicans also talked about the cuts in carbon dioxide emissions as pure ``environmental correctness'' and they spread a certain amount of uncertainty about whether global warming was really caused by the human kind and used this uncertainty to deny the necessity of doing something against global warming here and now.
The fear of unemployment also made the labor organizations support a no to the Kyoto Treaty although these organizations often found their opinion best represented by the Democratic Party. This is of course driven by the fact that being unemployed in the US is very harsh. Where unemployed people in Europe can rely on some kind of money from the society to help buying food, keeping a decent home and finding a new job unemployed people in the US are obliged to help themselves and to search help from social workers.
Industrialized nations to lower emissions
The fact that only industrialized countries should lower their emissions of carbon dioxide and not developing countries like China, which is number three on the list of the world's biggest emitters of carbon dioxide, also rose prejudice. This is despite the fact that the United Nations agreed that the developing countries should not pay for the mistakes of the now industrialized and rich countries. Calculations also show that an average American produces six tons of carbon dioxide, the average Briton three tons, a Chinese 0.7 tons and an Indian 0.25 tons. These differences are due to the huge populations of China and India.
Where the Republicans saw no alternative to the cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, the Democrats had a much more optimistic vision of the future. The Democrats expected that the Kyoto Treaty and the cuts in the emissions of carbon dioxide would encourage a development of alternative energy sources that would not have to rely on fossil fuels. The Democrats did not accept the fear of the industry because the industry had shown the same fear earlier when the ``Clean Air Act'' had been approved. At that time, the act actually turned out to encourage industry and to make it stronger.