The Kyoto Protocol

It is the most important international agreement on climate change, and has its origin in the United Nations Framework Convention created in 1992.

This protocol commits industrialized countries to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions. The Convention for its part only encourages countries to do so.

The PK, as it is called for short, was structured based on the principles of the Convention. It sets binding emission reduction targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European Union, recognizing that they are primarily responsible for the high levels of GHG emissions currently in the atmosphere, and that they are the result of burning fossil fuels for more than 150 years. In this sense, the Protocol has a central principle: that of “common but differentiated responsibility”.

The Protocol has moved governments to establish laws and policies to meet their commitments, companies to take the environment into account when making decisions about their investments, and has also led to the creation of the carbon market.

The way to follow

The Kyoto Protocol is widely seen as the first major step towards a truly global GHG emissions stabilization and reduction regime, and provides the essential architecture for any future international agreement on climate change. By the time the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012, a new international framework must have been decided and ratified that can deliver the severe emission reductions that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has clearly indicated. ) They are necessary.

The commitment obliges to limit joint emissions of 6 gases (CO2, CH4, N2O, HFC, H6F) with respect to the base year of 1990 for the first three gases, and 1995 for the rest, between 2008-2012 with an agreed general reduction of 5.2% for industrialized countries.

Which countries adopted this agreement?

The commitments made under the Kyoto Protocol vary from country to country. The objective of a global decrease of 5% in the levels of greenhouse gases with respect to 1990 for industrialized countries is between 28% for Luxembourg, 21% for Denmark and Germany. and a maximum increase in emissions of 25% for Greece and 27% for Portugal.

In the case of the EU, the reduction would be 8% globally with respect to the emissions of the year 1990, and in the specific case of Spain, the emissions for the period 2008-2012 must be a maximum of 15% higher than those of 1990.