Durban, South Africa December 8, 2011: The Durban COP 17 mandate which is due to end on Friday is surrounded with controversies and is divided over whether the Kyoto Protocol has a future or not. The EU has openly expressed its intention of joining the extension of the Kyoto Protocol only if the world’s biggest emitters, including China, the US and India, will do the same. Where the question lies in the three big nations CHINA, USA and INDIA.
The problems seem to lie with these three players who have been manipulating the protocol in their own desired way. China on the positive side seems to be ready to advance to the next stage of the Kyoto protocol but still has its side of reservation regarding some issues where as on the other side India and Unites states seems to be the two biggest democracies hindering the process highlighting their priorities and issues . They have been arguing with the issue of their contradiction where they seem transverse to the issue. The USA on the other side has been very hard on issues of its standards and way of life where as on the other side India has been reluctant to the fact that Indian economic development would be hampered by climate protection.
One world group, says “The United States has been accused time and again over the past 10 days of trying to block progress on many key issues. Perhaps the biggest issue of them all is a mandate to negotiate a new agreement that would bring more countries under legally binding obligations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions The EU is pushing for such a mandate, with a new treaty to come into effect by 2015.”
KYOTO PROTOCOL (COP 3—Kyoto, Japan, 1997) is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions .These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012. The major distinction between the Protocol and the Convention is that while the Convention encouraged industrialized countries to stabilize GHG emissions, the Protocol commits them to do so.
What happens if the Kyoto Protocol expires is a big question for least developed countries like Nepal. The basic idea behind the Kyoto protocol was to create feasible environment of DIPLOMACY in between the Developed, developing and the under developed countries where a feasible solution could be figured out in adaptation strategy for the under developed countries and further mitigation strategies could be adapted by the Developed and developing countries. The protocol was designed to encase the drafter with respect to their realistic emissions-reduction goals, and decrease in pollution levels that would start to mitigate climate change.
The basic purpose of the Kyoto Protocol was to reduce the level of green house gases emission and to further help integrate the least developed countries a voice to speak for themselves. With a limited output in the past years from the time of its initiation till now, Kyoto protocol has seen its ups and downs where 200 nations had signed the protocol and only 37 developed nations have took the GHG reduction goal. The prospect of KYOTO PROTOCOL seems as a question for its effectiveness and operation. Despite being one of its strongest early supporters United States never ratified the protocol. the Bush Administration believed it gave the undeveloped nations an economic advantage. Therefore, most of the world’s biggest CO2 contributors are not bound by the Kyoto Protocol to reduce their emissions. Ratification makes a country legally bound to the commitment it made when it signed the document.
The protocol also highlights the major issue of reducing the rates of the GHG emission rate by its rates of 1990 where it moderately subside the level of what and how much. Most importantly it lacks to address the contribution and role of the developing countries that had experienced great economic growth, such as India and China during the period of the protocol. While participating nations are given credit for planting trees and funding sustainable energy, there is no reward for conservation or preservation. This protocol does not protect the existing forests that hold 40% of terrestrial carbon. The Protocol doesn’t even set a long-term goal for atmospheric concentrations of CO2, so there is no objective reason for either the overall reductions or the particular reductions by individual nations that it proposes.
So the difference in between the understanding of Developed and the developing nations have certainly led to point out the cons of the Kyoto protocol. But reality is with great powers, come great responsibilities and if these gaps are not overcome with proper mechanism. The world will certainly have to face confrontation at the stake of what we has lost …………………….
