HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON CLIMATE POLICY - The Climate Casino - page 199

would amount to “dangerous” anthropogenic interference. But it is a
good starting point.
The fi rst and to date only binding international agreement on cli-
mate change was the Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997. The protocol cited
the objective from the Framework Convention to prevent dangerous
anthropogenic interference with the climate system. 3 When it came to
mandates, the protocol required Annex I countries to reduce emissions
but exempted other countries. (Annex I consists of the high-income
countries and those in “transition to a market economy.”) As a whole,
the participants agreed to reduce their CO 2 and other greenhouse-gas
emissions to a level 7 percent below the 1990 total, with the agreement
to take force during the period 2008-2012. There was, however, no
direct link between the emissions reductions and an environmental tar-
get, and there was no mechanism to encourage participation or prevent
free riding.
I discuss the diffi culties of the Kyoto Protocol in later chapters. The
short verdict is that it failed to reduce emissions substantially or attract
countries, and it expired at the end of 2012.
Now move to the meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009. This
meeting was called to establish a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol,
whose agreed-upon limits expired at the end of 2012. The meeting failed
its key goal of establishing binding emissions limits after 2012. However,
it did adopt a target temperature limit to be used for climate policy-
making. In the Copenhagen Accord, countries recognized “the scientifi c
view that the increase in global temperature should be below 2 degrees
Celsius.” 4 This was the fi rst time that any climate target had been estab-
lished at a global conference.
The target of limiting climate change to 2°C above preindustrial
levels has been widely accepted among governments, scientists, and
environmentalists. In 2007 the European Commission considered pro-
posals “to prevent global climate change from irrevocable consequences.
This means limiting global warming to no more than 2°C above the
temperature in pre-industrial times.” The Group of 8 richest countries
declared at the L'Aquila Summit in July 2009, “We recognize the sci-
entifi c view that the increase in global average temperature above