The EU Legal Frameworks - The Sustainability of Renewable Energy in Europe - page 25

When the UNFCCC was launched, governments knew very well that its provi-
sions were mostly declarative. The main limitation of the convention was the mani-
festation of commitments too general and protracted over time in an excessive way,
without a short-term vision that could give a range of policy and activities to pursue.
In order to overcome this major limitation, the COP proposed regular meetings
once a year. The first meeting, called COP1, was held in Berlin in April 1995. On
this occasion, the so-called Berlin Mandate was signed, for which they have cre-
ated the first concrete actions through the establishment of activities implemented
jointly, aimed at testing the feasibility of international projects to reduce emissions.
Among the meetings more profitable and famous, there is definitely COP3
which was held in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997 , where the Kyoto Protocol was
defined.
At the beginning of the COP3, it was clear from the start that positions of differ-
ent countries were very different in relation to the percentage of emission reduction
which would have been undertaken. The EU had proposed a generalized reduction
of 10 % with the possibility of reaching 15 % if other countries were willing to
do the same effort. The USA was in favor of a stabilization of emissions at 1990
levels by the year 2000, that is, without any reduction. Japan was willing to reduce
emissions by 5 %. The USA, however, were willing to give up the involvement of
developing countries in the reduction targets, provided that developing countries at
least would have taken voluntary commitments.
For the USA, however, it was unacceptable both the European proposals to re-
duce emissions by 10-15 % and the redistribution of reduction obligations between
the different EU member states. The differentiated quotas were finally accepted on
condition that this principle was extended to all Annex I countries. The European
delegation was also discordant on a massive use of flexible mechanisms over a
maximum of 50 % of the reduction commitments of each country. These clashes
resulted in a differentiation of commitments in which the so-called group Juscanz
(Japan, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) were contrary to defined commit-
ments, for a greater involvement of developing countries and a massive use of flex-
ible mechanisms. The EU was instead in favor of further commitments for industri-
alized countries. After long and tiring negotiations, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted
on the evening of the last day of meetings with a compromise quantified in 5.2 %
overall emissions and variable shares for the countries of Annex I.
The USA insisted that they should have been relatively less burdened with emis-
sion quotas with respect to European quotas, as Congress was hostile to any formal
commitment.
Consisting of 28 articles, the Kyoto Protocol has placed a greater emphasis on
the objectives assigned to Annex I parties to reduce emissions clearly qualified and
quantified for each individual country. The reference period for the implementa-
tion of the planned reductions would have to be 5 years, the so-called commitment
period from 2008 to 2012. The end result of the protocol, however, was a treaty not
well structured and unclear, in which most of the text focused on secondary issues
while some key provisions were set out in subordinate sentences.