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Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, climate models predict that the global temperature will rise by about 1 to 3.5 degrees centigrade by the year 2100, a projected change larger than any climate change experienced over the last 10,000 years. The projection is based on current emissions trends and assumes no efforts to limit emissions of greenhouse gases. Further warming is expected to cause a rise in sea levels and changes in weather patterns which could lead to coastal erosion, increased storm damage, and more frequent floods and droughts.  Kyoto Basics •Adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting in Kyoto, Japan in 1997. •It calls for legally binding emissions targets for developed nations to reverse the upward trend of greenhouse gas emissions, the cause for global warming. • Collectively, the developed countries that ratify the Kyoto Protocol agree to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases 5 % below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. Individual countries have different reduction targets to help reach that collective goal. • The Kyoto greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydro fluorocarbons, per fluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride. • To enter into effect the protocol must be ratified by at least 55 countries, including the industrialized nations that account for at least 55 percent of emissions.
The Kyoto Protocol remains the central foundation for international efforts in climate protection, and Germany continues to push for its ratification and entry into force by September 2002. That is when nations will come together in Johannesburg, South Africa for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, a 10-year follow up to the landmark 1992 Rio Earth Summit at which the Convention on Climate Change was formed. In 1992 countries agreed to report their emissions and to take steps to "mitigate climate change," specifically through the non-binding aim for developed countries to reduce their emissions to 1990 levels by 2000. The purpose of the Kyoto Protocol is to strengthen the Convention with binding emissions targets. The European Union earlier this month cleared the way for the ratification
of Kyoto by its member nations when the EU ministers of the environment
agreed to ratify the agreement. The agreement by the Environmental Council
allows the national governments and parliaments to proceed with ratification.
In Germany, the Bundestag is expected to take up the matter this spring
as the Federal Cabinet approved a draft bill in December 2001 calling
for ratification.
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