Sustainability and policy - Climate Change: Biological and Human Aspects - page 455

action contributing a significant amount to the country's total effort to meeting its
target.
The problem with the Protocol is that the enthusiasm for it of individual nations
differs. Although the Kyoto conference took place at the end of 1997, Russia did not
sign up to it until 2004. Worse, the USA, which is responsible for about a quarter of
global emissions, withdrew from the Protocol in 2001 on the grounds that it would
harm its economy, even though it negotiated hard for carbon trading and for carbon
sinks to be taken into account. (Currently, early 2012, the US has not ratified the Kyoto
Protocol, but is a signatory.) Further, even many of the nations that did sign up to
Kyoto had failed to make any savings by 2011. Not surprisingly then, globally carbon
emissions have risen and this is reflected in increased atmospheric accumulation of
carbon dioxide. Nonetheless, the Kyoto Protocol to date represents the most serious
international policy attempt to curb global warming. Its first commitment period ends
in 2012 and the UN has been holding a number of preliminary meetings to develop
the Protocol beyond that date and also to encourage nations that are not on board
to join. The first of these was held in Montreal in November 2005 (of which more
shortly, in section 8.1.10).
So what effect would the Kyoto Protocol have on the typical range of IPCC
Business-as-Usual (B-a-U) scenarios for the 21st century? If it were implemented by
itself with no further carbon emission cuts then the 21st century would see global
emissions reduced to 5% less than those of 1990 by 2012 and then remain steady.
Under such a scenario one might presume that the developed nations would continue
with further cuts (beyond 5%) to offset the increase in emissions from developing
countries: the remainder of the 21st century would then see a static level of emissions
at 5% less than those in 1990. At the end of the century global warming would be
delayed by just a few years (optimistically, 2-5 years) compared to most of the IPCC's
2000 B-a-U-type scenarios. To actually stabilise atmospheric concentrations at 420
parts per million (ppm) CO 2 (50% above pre-industrial levels of 270-80 ppm) and
to avoid even further warming beyond what this will incur, the IPCC say we need
to cut emissions to 50% of 1990 levels by 2050. Conversely, more drastically, if we
were to have stabilised the atmospheric concentration at its 1990 level of around
353 ppm, then the IPCC (1990) state that we would have needed to have made
an immediate cut of carbon emissions of 60-80%. Yet by 2010 the year average
atmospheric concentration was 388.5 ppm 1 . In short, the Kyoto Protocol by itself
(assuming its goals are fulfilled) is just a beginning in an attempt to manage fossil
carbon emissions. Much depends on the continuing Protocol negotiations.
Having said all of this, it is important to note the assumption in the above con-
clusion, namely that the Protocol, within its own terms, succeeded: many nations
agreed to sign up to climate goals. This is a start, but it would necessitate further
development so that emissions could be meaningfully curbed to reduce (if not elim-
inate) anthropogenic climate forcing. So, is the Protocol really succeeding in terms
of this broader goal? Two-thirds of a decade on from Kyoto, and halfway to 2010

1

A point of pedantry, but sharp-eyed readers of the literature might wonder: 388.5 ppm is the 2010 average
taken from globally averaged marine surface data given by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration Earth System Research Laboratory (NOAA/ESRL) website. See Dr Pieter Tans, www.
esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends. Often quoted is the Mauna Loa average for 2010 of 389.8 ppm.