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Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty or law that came into effect on 16 February 2005. It requires all major developed nations, except the United States and Australia who did not ratify the treaty, to reduce their emissions by agreed amounts in the period 2008 – 2012 – the first “commitment period”. In most cases, the targets are relative to 1990. The targeted reductions vary greatly. For example, Germany and Denmark’s targets are a 29% reduction relative to 1990; Canada’s is a 6% reduction; Switzerland’s is an 8% reduction; New Zealand’s and Russia’s targets are no change (i.e. they are allowed to emit the same amount of greenhouse gases in 2012 as they did in 1990). Interestingly, Australia managed to negotiate an 8% increase in its target (other countries were also allowed increases) but they still did not ultimately ratify the treaty.
Unfortunately, even if all countries meet their targets for the first commitment period it will make little real difference to climate change. The resulting reductions will be swallowed up by increases in emissions from the developing countries that are not yet part of the Kyoto Treaty. However, one positive outcome of Kyoto is that we now have a model in place that can form the basis for negotiating more meaningful reductions in post-2012 commitment periods.
NZ’s Kyoto performance
The Kyoto Protocol commits New Zealand to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to1990 levels as an average over the first commitment period, 2008 to 2012, i.e., a no change target.
The latest greenhouse gas inventory for New Zealand shows that our emissions are increasing rapidly. If we do nothing to reduce our emissions, our total will be 30 percent over our 1990 target of 60 million tonnes CO2 equivalent by 2012. We will have to take responsibility for these emissions by either purchasing emission units on the international market and/or by counting our forest sink credits, i.e., the amount of CO2 absorbed by forests (that were planted after 1990) during the first commitment period.
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