LOC19:09
16:09 GMT
TOKYO, Feb 16 (KUNA) -- Sunday marked the 15-year anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol taking effect, which is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol, which was adopted at the Conference of the Parties (COP 3) in the Japanese city of Kyoto in 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005, is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Currently, there are 192 parties to the world's first and only legally binding treaty on climate change.
According to the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol is based on the principles and provisions of the Convention and follows its annex-based structure. In its Annex B, the Kyoto Protocol sets binding emission reduction targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European Union. These targets add up to an average 5 percent emission reduction compared to 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012, which was the first commitment period.
In 2012, the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in the Qatari capital for a second commitment period 2013-2020, but the amendment has not yet entered into force, as acceptance of 144 of the 192 parties are required for entry into force of the amendment.
During the second commitment period, Parties committed to reduce GHG emissions by at least 18 percent below 1990 levels in the eight-year period from 2013 to 2020.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, countries must meet their targets primarily through national measures, but it also offers them an additional means to meet their targets by way of three market-based mechanisms -- International Emissions Trading, Joint Implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism. However, developing countries were exempted from reduction obligations, while the US, which was the world's biggest emitter when the pact was adopted in 1997, never ratified it. (end)
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