Kyoto Protocol Adopted
The Kyoto Protocol was adopted on 11 December 1997 and was the first international agreement to impose binding emissions limits. It operated under the 1992 Framework Convention, whose principle of common but differentiated responsibilities meant that the countries which had emitted most historically would act first. Thirty-seven industrialised countries and the European Community accepted targets averaging about five per cent below 1990 levels over 2008 to 2012; developing countries, including China and India, took none. That asymmetry destroyed it in Washington. The Senate had passed the Byrd-Hagel resolution unanimously six months before the protocol was even signed, resolving to reject any treaty that exempted developing countries or damaged the American economy. Clinton signed it and never submitted it; Bush withdrew in 2001. It came into force only in February 2005, when Russia ratified it — Russia's participation being worth having because its post-Soviet industrial collapse had already cut emissions far below the 1990 baseline, giving it surplus permits to sell. The protocol's lasting contribution was mechanical rather than environmental. It created emissions trading, joint implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism, and established the accounting, monitoring and verification systems that all later climate agreements use. Most participating countries met their targets. Global emissions rose by roughly a third over the commitment period, because the countries growing fastest had no obligations. Canada withdrew in 2011 rather than pay for missing its target. The Paris Agreement of 2015 abandoned the binding-target model entirely in favour of self-set national pledges, which is the direct lesson of Kyoto.
- Year: 1997 CE
- Category: Diplomatic
