Treaties and Negotiations

Signed at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 1992 by over 150 nations including the United States of America, the Rio Climate Treaty came into force in March 1994 and has been ratified or acceded to by virtually every nation including all populous countries except Turkey. The Rio Climate Treaty was the centerpiece of the Rio Earth Summit and was signed by over a hundred heads of state and government including US President George Herbert Walker Bush. The Rio Climate Treaty sets an overall framework for climate protection and identifies as an objective in Article 2 "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would produce dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."

Despite its very ambitious objectives, the Rio Climate Treaty does not set any binding emission limitations. In article 4 concerning Commitments the Framework Convention calls for developed country parties to adopt national policies and take measures "with the aim of returning individually or jointly" their net greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels. Outside of the former Soviet Bloc countries whose emissions plummeted with the closing of noncompetitive industry, Germany which experienced a windfall from that trend in what had been East Germany, and the UK which substituted natural gas for coal, nearly all industrial countries failed to meet this non-binding commitment. By the mid-1990s it had become clear that the essentially voluntary measures of the Rio Treaty were not arresting an upward emissions trend in most of the industrialized world and this caused parties to the Rio Climate Treaty to look toward an emissions protocol with binding limitations on developed country parties.  After two-and-a-half years of negotiations such a protocol was agreed to in December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan.

Kyoto Protocol

Even before the protocol was negotiated in final text in Kyoto, opponents in the US Senate sealed its doom with a 95-0 resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that the US should not sign an agreement which would either threaten the economic health of the US or which would impose binding requirements on the US without also imposing binding requirements on developing countries. Arguably the first requirement might be met, but there was no way that the Kyoto Protocol could meet the second requirement. In the Berlin Mandate of April 1995 that set up the terms of the protocol negotiations, developing countries had been guaranteed that they would be exempt from binding limitations in any upcoming protocol. This was adopted due to equity considerations - the fact that per capita emissions are generally much higher in the industrial countries e.g. one American produces about the same greenhouse emissions each year as 60 Bangladeshi, 20 Indians or 8 Chinese. Yet opponents of the draft protocol seized on the non-inclusion of developing countries in the first Kyoto round to get the US Senate unanimously on record against the soon to be finalized protocol.

The Kyoto Protocol ultimately set requirements for developed countries which, if agreed to and successfully implemented, would produce an overall reduction of just over 5% below developed country 1990 emissions by the 2008-2012 time frame that was set in the protocol as the first commitment period. The "Guide to the Climate Change Negotiating Process" shows the country variations with requirements of 1990 emissions allowable. 

To come into force the protocol required ratification or accession to it by 55 nations and ratification or accession to it by developed countries whose aggregate 1990 greenhouse emissions amounted to 55% of total developed country 1990 greenhouse emissions. See the CAN-Europe site link on our Resources and Links page.

The first requirement of ratification or approval by 55 countries was readily achieved. The real hurdle for the protocol to come into force, given the opposition of the US Senate and the Bush Administration, was the 55% of developed country 1990 emissions threshold. Under the Howard Government, Australia was adamantly opposed to Kyoto. This meant that the failure of either Japan or Russia to ratify or approve the Protocol would have prevented it from coming into force. Despite some concerns in Japan about the country’s ability to meet Kyoto obligations, Japan ultimately ratified the Protocol in part because it was the most significant environmental agreement ever negotiated on Japanese soil. This ultimately left the fate of the Kyoto Protocol up to Russia. In mid-2004 the Putin Government was sending conflicting signals on its intentions. Ultimately European agreement to facilitate Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization tipped Russia to ratify Kyoto. As a result the Kyoto Protocol went into force on February 16, 2005.

Now that the Kyoto Protocol has met the 55% threshold and come into force, it will in its initial stage have only a marginal impact on global emissions trends. It has been estimated that stabilization of greenhouse concentrations will ultimately require a reduction of global greenhouse emissions roughly 60% below 1990 levels. In the absence of any international controls it is estimated that global emissions would have risen about 40% by 2012. With Kyoto implemented by all developed countries, it is anticipated that global emissions might rise by 30% over the same period.  With the US and Australia on the sidelines and no real compliance mechanism even for those who have ratified, Kyoto may produce even more modest results.

G-8 Renewable Energy Initiative

In July 2000 at their Okinawa Summit the G-8, at the urging of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, agreed to create a Renewable Energy Task Force to address the challenge of two billion people lacking access to electricity. The Task Force drafted a Report that calls for G-8 member countries to support renewable energy actions in developing countries and to complement this with efforts in their domestic markets to scale up use of renewable energy.

Small Island States Clean Energy Initiative

In October 1998 the Climate Institute and Counterpart International organized a Symposium on Sustainable Energy Options for Small Island States. Present were the Foreign Minister of Jamaica, the UNDP administrator and senior staff, several USAID representatives and Permanent representatives from UN missions.

St. Lucia's Effort to Become World's First Non-Carbon Fuel Based Nation

An immediate outgrowth of this was the decision of the Caribbean nation of St. Lucia to become the world's first Sustainable Energy Demonstration Country. This was announced by the Government of St. Lucia at a press conference held jointly with the Climate Institute in November 1999 at the Bonn climate conference. Before making this announcement St. Lucia began steps to remove tariffs on renewable energy technologies and support equipment. In November 2000 St. Lucia's Prime Minister Dr. Kenny Anthony called on other countries at the Hague climate conference to follow St. Lucia's lead. In July 2001 the St. Lucia government approved a 10-year Sustainable Energy Plan.

Global Sustainable Energy Islands Initiative

Seeking to expand the Sustainable Energy Demonstration Country concept to other island nations, the Climate Institute and four partners — Counterpart International, Winrock International, Forum for Energy and Development and the Organization of American States — formed a consortium to support the interest of all small island states and potential donors by bringing renewable energy and energy efficiency projects, models, and concepts together in a sustainable plan for small island nations.

This effort was the focus of the principal Earth Day event at the UN in April 2001. The first two island states to join St. Lucia in an effort to de-carbonize their energy systems were Grenada and Dominica, both in the Caribbean. The Marshall Islands in the Pacific and St. Kitts & Nevis in the Caribbean have indicated willingness to join the Global Sustainable Energy Islands Initiative.

Iceland's Effort to Become First Hydrogen Based National Economy

Iceland, whose per capita greenhouse emissions are among the highest in the world, is now moving aggressively to become the world's first hydrogen-based economy. This country of about 270,000 has embraced a vision first put forth in the 1970s by Bragi Arnason, a professor at the University of Iceland. To reach its goal of becoming the world's first hydrogen-based national economy, Iceland seeks to leverage its access to plentiful inexpensive hydro and geothermal power to speed commercialization of fuel cells for transport and power generation.

United Nations Climate Change Conference, held November-December 2005. Commentary in Living City, (PDF) page 6.

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