ABSTRACT
In 1992, representatives from most of the countries in the world met in Rio de Janeiro to adopt a framework for international action on the issue of the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The accepted scientific view is that the increasing anthropogenic release of greenhouse gases (most notably, CO2, methane, and NOx, CFCs, and water vapour) will result (and may have already) in significant changes to the Earth’s climate system, including a substantial warming at the Earth’s surface. It was felt that efforts must be made to reduce both the level of emissions and the overall concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The resulting framework – the UN Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – provided an initial step toward this emission reduction goal. The UNFCCC has now been ratified by over 180 countries and entered into force in March 1994. Subsequent to this, the Convention was supplemented with the Kyoto Protocol (agreed to at a meeting in Kyoto, Japan, in December, 1997), which identified specific emission reduction targets for 39 developed countries (so-called Annex B countries, since these commitments are listed in Annex B of the Protocol). The Protocol represents a binding agreement to reduce the global emission of greenhouse gases. To date, the Protocol has been signed by 84 countries and ratified by 37. To take the force of international law, 55 countries representing over 55% of the total greenhouse gas emissions globally must ratify the Protocol. However, in the spring of 2001, the Bush administration in the US announced that it would not ratify the Protocol and would not be bound by its provisions. At the time of this writing, the Parties to the Convention have just completed a two-week meeting in Bonn (officially the Conference of the Parties 6, part II or COP 6.II) in an attempt to revise the Protocol to a point where it is acceptable to most, if not all, countries in the world. The Earth Summit in Durban, South Africa, in September 2002, however, failed to ratify the Protocol.
