246 A strategyfor action to slowand stabiliseclimate change
Table 10.1Emissions targets (1990*–2008/2012) for greenhouse gases
under the Kyoto ProtocolCountry Target (%)
EU-15**, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland− 8USA*** − 7
Canada, Hungary, Japan, Poland − 6
Croatia − 5
New Zealand, Russian Federation, Ukraine 0
Norway + 1
Australia + 8
Iceland + 10* Some economies in transition (EIT) countries have a baseline other than 1990.
** The fifteen countries of the European Union have agreed an average reduction;
changes for individual countries vary from−28% for Luxembourg,−21% for
Denmark and Germanyto+25% for Greece and+27% for Portugal.
*** The USA has stated that it will not ratify the Protocol.TheKyoto Protocol
At the first meeting after its entry into force held in Berlin in 1995,
the Parties to the Climate Convention (i.e. all the countries that had
ratified it) decided that they needed to negotiate a more specific and
quantified agreement than the Convention on its own provided. Because
of the principle in the Convention that industrialised countries should
take the lead, a Protocol was formulated that required commitments from
these countries (known as Annex I countries) for specific quantitative
reductions in emissions (listed in Table 10.1) from their level in 1990
to their average from 2008–12, called the first commitment period. The
Protocol also required that a second commitment period be defined for
which negotiations must start no later than 2005. The Protocol carries
inbuilt mechanisms that could lead to stronger action and be expanded
over time to include developing countries.
The basic structure of the Protocol and the commitments required
by different countries were agreed at a meeting of the Conference of the
Parties in Kyoto in November 1997. But the Protocol is a highly complex
agreement and over the next three years intense negotiations followed
regarding the details – the range of gases covered, the basis for comparing
them and the rules for monitoring, reporting and compliance. Further the
Protocol incorporates a range of mechanisms (see box below) of a kind