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Gilles is the owner of Take Part Media, a Paris-based media company co-founded in 2006 with Jean-Philippe Lorenzo, with private funds. Both founders hold a PhD in Physics...
The Kyoto Protocol
15 Feb, 2007 04:09 pm
Signed in 1997 by industrialized nations, principally Europe, Japan, and North America, the Kyoto Protocol came into effect in February 2005. It is unique in the sea of international treaties. For the first time countries have come to an agreement to fight a threat to the environment that has potentially disastrous consequences for humanity: Global Warming.
The treaty specifies the ways in which countries will be able to hold to the agreement:
- Internal energy efficiency measures, sustainable agriculture, renewable energies, reducing the emissions of CO2 in transportation, etc.
- CO2 reduction trading scheme between counties commonly called “trading the right to pollute”
- A technology transfer towards developing countries, called “the clean development mechanism”
Signed during the Clinton administration, the treaty was never ratified by the United States. George W. Bush has refused to ratify the treaty since his arrival to the White House in 2001 arguing that its implementation would handicap the American economy, notably in competition with China who’s a non-signatory.
China being a developing country isn’t included in the first part of the protocol (2008-2012). If its economy experiences a rapid growth,+10.7% in 2006, its contribution to CO2 emissions, which is increasing quickly as well, is nevertheless limited in comparison to European and American emissions.
Read more:
Investigation of climate change: what we know, the consequences and how to stop it
The Signs of Global Warming
Between 1.8 and 4C
5.5 trillion dollars
Translation: Christopher Le Coq
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