ABSTRACT
The great saga of the Kyoto Protocol began with abundant hope in 1997, suffered a near-death experience in 2001, and a resurrection to great fanfare in 2002–2003. This was followed by a gradual demise after the Bali conference in 2007, and a hard blow delivered by Japan in December 2011 (Harrison and Sundstrom 2010; Ohta 2000, 2009). The Kyoto Protocol was a historic milestone, the first binding international treaty involving all developed countries, and even developing countries as future participants, with a clear commitment to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) and a reversal of the gloomy trend towards global warming. The treaty that was signed in 1997 in the historical capital of Japan committed the EU (with 15 members at the time) to reduce its GHGEs by 8 per cent from the 1990 level by 2012, while it committed the US and Japan to reduction targets of 7 per cent and 6 per cent, respectively. In real terms, the target meant a 31 per cent reduction for the US from its business-as-usual trend (United States Department of State 2002) and a 15 per cent reduction for Japan. For Europe, the target was not entirely trivial, but was comparatively easier to achieve in the light of structural shifts in the energy sector away from coal in eastern Germany and the UK. Most importantly, the Kyoto Protocol was an institutional trailblazer that set in motion a host of innovations (especially in Europe), such as the carbon trading market, the clean development mechanism (CDM), new monitoring mechanisms, and experimentation to encourage alternative energies and developments with regard to carbon taxes.
