Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The first IPCC assessment provided the technical rationale for the UNFCC in 1992,
designed to “reduce global warming resulting from human activities and to cope with the
consequences of climate change”. This apparently swift progress on the political front was
possible because, like the Vienna Convention on Stratospheric Ozone and the Convention
on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP), the treaty itself is quite gener-
al with no specific commitments required of the parties (national governments who have
signed on to the UNFCCC). It sets out such things as broad goals and objectives, together
with systems of governance, to build a regime in which the real and difficult actions can
be prescribed by legally binding protocols. Such protocols can then be independently rat-
ified by the parties. The first such protocol under the convention was the Kyoto Protocol,
whichisessentiallyanactionplanaimedatachievingtheobjectivesoftheUNFCCC.Asof
December 2012, 191 countries are parties to the protocol. This means they have either rat-
ified or acceded to it. Canada and the United States - two of the countries with the highest
per capita rate of emissions of carbon dioxide - are not parties. (Canada originally signed
but subsequently abandoned the protocol on the 15 December 2012). Sadly, the protocol is
generally judged by the scientific community as being unable to prevent global warming
surpassing an increase of +2°C (the level that many countries have informally agreed as a
boundary not to be passed) and it is probably now consigned to the history topics. But its
demise had more to do with a lack of commitment to its policy intent of reducing green-
house gases (GHGs) emissions than to any dissatisfaction about the protocol's scientific
foundations.
The fourth IPCC assessment (AR4) was published in 2007 and the fifth assessment
(AR5) appeared over the period 2013-2014.
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