The Long Road to Copenhagen.
1972 Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm)
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Set up the UN Environment Programme UNEP in Nairobi.
Set up an Action Plan of 109 measures for governmental and international action
Concern for the environment became sidelined by the onset of the OPEC oil crisis in 1973.
Developing nations viewed the concentration on the environment as a developed world way of
redistributing power away from the oil-producing nations. They also were sceptical of the focus on
international agreements on the environment once the developed world had enjoyed the luxury of
development (pulling up the ladder behind them). The “Limits on Growth” was published to
worldwide attention pointing to the limit that the environment’s carrying capacity would place on
international economic growth. The Global Report to the President in 1980 concluded in a similarly
pessimistic fashion although the right wing response to this in Kahn and Simon’s A Response to
Global 2000 (2002) labelled the fatalism of the report as “globaloney!”
Pressure group membership and support for Green parties in Western Europe soared in the wake of
a large number of environmental catastrophes in the 1980s including:
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The Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown (1979)
The Bhopal chemical spill 1984
The acid rain debate
Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown 1986
The discovery of the hole in the ozone layer
The 1984 drought and famine in Africa
A major chemical spill in the Rhine 1986
Deforestation accelerating in Brazil, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Thailand, Angola, Indonesia….
The Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska 1989
1987 UNEP – “Our Common Future” (Brundtland Report)
Written by the Chair of the UN Commission Gro Harland Brundtland (later Norwegian PM) the report
linked hunger, debt, inadequate economic growth to environmental concerns. She attempted to
draw together the issues of ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT and ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN. (see
sustainable development section in ecologism).
The 1987 Montreal Protocol established limits on CFC use (50% reduction by 2000) and then later
an outright ban to reduce the hole in the ozone layer. There was consensus over the impact of CFCs
and was an effective mechanism for swiftly reducing their use. Thatcher and Soviet Union Foreign
Minister Eduard Schevardnadze gave speeches in 1988 linking the environment with issues of
national security for the first time. Reagan and Bush both downplayed the environment as an issue
arguing for more study and that the cost of environmental protection was punitive for US business.
US officials began to adopt their modernist position that technology and markets provide better
solutions to environmental issues than regulation by government or international agreements.
In 1988 the IPCC was established to monitor and assimilate the information on climate change.
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1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development: Rio “Earth Summit”
Find the Rio Conventions here
173 national delegates, 115 heads of state and more than 15,000 NGO representatives focused on
the issue of “sustainable development”. Agenda 21 laid out plans for different bodies although
these would come to little. It included measures to accelerate the access of LDCs to Western export
markets, debt relief programmes and aid for the provision of basic needs for LDCs. It also set out the
first treaty on climate seeking to reduce GHGs and a treaty on biodiversity. It set up the 53 nation
Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD). It attempted again to reconcile the interests of the
industrial powers of the North (who were increasingly concerned over environmental issues) with
the demands of the South for economic development. The summit established the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC (find text of the UNFCCC here) which would
monitor emissions and all participating countries agreed to calculate and report their emissions. This
body would organise the COP rounds of talks annually. It also first accepted the principle of
“common but differentiated responsibilities” under which the developed countries are obliged to act
first but all countries accept the responsibility to act. The USA blocked any talk of mandatory cuts in
emissions unless all states had to sign up. George Bush sr. stated “the American way of life is not
negotiable.”
1997 The Kyoto Protocol
Find the Kyoto Protocol here
The four key positions of countries on the Kyoto Protocol were:
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The US did not want to sign up to anything that did not bind the developing nations in as
well. They wanted to negotiate down the cuts, wanted the legally binding nature removed
and wanted an emissions trading system to bring in all nations.
The EU wanted a strong binding document which did not go too far in harming their GDP.
The developing world generally wanted acknowledgement of the historic responsibility of
the industrialised nations for the problem and for rich countries to take immediate action.
However poverty alleviation had to come first for them.
The small island states wanted dramatic action fast.
Representatives from 189 nations and the EU have signed up to the Kyoto Protocol. The agreement
signs up Annex 1 (industrialised nations) to limit CO2e emissions by 5.2% for the average year
between 2008- 2012 compared with the 1990 baseline. Different countries were set differential
targets to achieve this average, see table below.
(see here for document on reasons behind original allocations of targets)
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Even within these groups so-called “bubbles” were allowed which allowed this target to be itself
shared out between the member nations. For instance within the EU the UK has a target of -12.5%
under the Kyoto Protocol.
There is NO EMISSIONS TARGET for developing nations (non-Annex 1) within Kyoto. The Kyoto
Protocol also set up the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)and the process of Joint
Implementation (JI).
The USA signed up to the Kyoto Protocol in November 1998 in Buenos Aires but the Senate refused
to ratify it and voted 95-0 to block any treaty that did not sign developing nations up on the same
basis or establish a system of emissions trading that would include those nations (which would
have allowed the USA to continue to emit but to buy the additional permits from developing nations
who would cut back on their development and emissions instead). The US bipartisan opposition was
an alliance of RW climate scepticism or opposition to big government regulation combined with left
wing fears of loss of jobs and competitiveness issues. The US is a member of the UNFCCC but NOT a
signatory of the Kyoto Protocol. The USA formally pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 when the
final legally binding deal in the Hague was clearly not going to include any developing nation
commitments. Bush believed that China would gain more of a competitive advantage over the USA
as it was not obliged to make any cuts under the Protocol.
Russia and Australia also refused to sign up to the protocol originally. The slow pace of ratification
of Kyoto led many of the actual signatories not to take adequate steps to ensure that they were on
target to meet their obligations under the Treaty because the treaty would not come into force
unless 55 developed nations representing 55% of all GHG emissions signed up to the treaty. The US
accounted for 24% of 1990 emissions and the excluded developing nations another 20% so with
Russia and Australia also refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol ceased to come into effect as a legally
binding treaty at first. The US had recognised that Russia’s oil and gas and Australia’s coal interests
would mean they were opposed to legally binding targets and that the 55% clause would effectively
grant them a VETO. Russia eventually signed up to Kyoto in October 2004, no doubt at least in part
to benefit from the bonanza of trading permit credits that it will be eligible to sell under the carbon
trading programme between Annex 1 nations due to the fact that the 1990 Kyoto baseline was a
time before the collapse of Soviet heavy industry due to their process of restructuring away from
communist plans to a free market. This collapse of GDP has led to a huge reduction in Russian
emission levels which they could sell on to other Kyoto members who have not succeeded in
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meeting their emission baselines. It was also a trade-off in return for the EU allowing Russia to gain
accession to the WTO! Their admission would allow the EU to make more extensive use of the Joint
Implementation procedure so that they could be seen to be honouring their Kyoto pledges (by
buying Russian allowances), even though this in fact did not help to reduce emissions in the slightest.
Their signing up took the KYOTO PROTOCOL over the 55% hurdle and from a statement of intent
into a binding treaty.
Australia also signed up to Kyoto after the change of government in December 2007. In the
immediate run-up to the Bali Conference Kevin Rudd the Labour PM reversed the stance of the
previous Conservative administration of Michael Howard who had refused to sign up to any
agreement that did not bind developing nations to targets.
The total emissions of Annex 1 nations has fallen by 15.3% 1990-2007 (excluding USA) and this was
mainly due to the fall in emissions from the Economies in Transition (EIT nations) where there have
been cuts of 30-50%. Emissions have generally stopped falling since 1999 though and the emissions
of all Kyoto parties has in fact risen by 3.8% between 1999-2007. With the US included as well
(where GHG emissions rose 17% 1990- 2007) the total industrialised emission have only fallen by
4.8% 1990-2007.
Any reduction in emissions by these ANNEX 1 nations has of course been dwarfed by the rise in
emissions from developing nations over the period 1990-2007 due particularly to the economic
growth of Brazil, India, China (and Indonesia). It is thought that the emissions for these three
countries have increased by over 80% since 1990 (IEA 2009) although figures are very difficult to
ascertain here. China overtook the USA as the world’s biggest emitter of CO2e in 2006.
OVERALL global emissions are estimated to have RISEN by 22% between 1990 and 2005. This is an
annual average of 1.3% but since 2000 the annual average has been 2.9% (IEA 2009).
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The Kyoto Protocol: 3 Market-based mechanisms
1) EMISSIONS TRADING
This allows Annex 1 industrialised nations to trade their emission allowances if one of them has
emitted substantially less than its allocation to another member of Annex 1 who needs to be granted
the right to go beyond their emissions allocation. This is most likely to occur when Russia or another
EIT (economy in transition away from communism) sells some of its allocation that it no longer uses
due to the collapse of heavy industry in the post-communist era. It REDISTRIBUTES emissions
between Annex 1 members and does not alter the total level of emissions. However it can be very
beneficial in ensuring that the least cost area for emission reductions is found within the Annex 1
nations so as to reduce emissions in the most efficient and cost effective manner. This is a
restatement of the classic comparative advantage argument for free trade in a different context. The
country that should specialise in emissions reduction should be the one which can do so with the
least opportunity costs if it is going to be done in the most efficient manner possible and only a
market-based system like emissions trading will get around the asymmetric information problems of
governments trying to regulate to reduce emissions and expose where the optimum place for the
emission cut to be made is.
However opponents of the trading would point to the artificiality of the 1990 baseline. The collapse
of the Soviet Union has in effect made it possible for the non-Soviet and EIT nations to INCREASE
their pollution and buy in the permits under the system from those nations rather than to have to
accept the pain of making those cuts in emissions themselves. This seems to go against somewhat
the rationale behind limiting emissions. Had the figure been on a 1997 baseline then the targets
could not have been so conveniently met through carbon trading (though there would have been
more emissions overall due to their higher level in 1997 than 1990 so higher emissions cuts would
have been needed to be called for and this would probably not have passed). This loophole was in
essence built into the Kyoto framework to allow rich countries to be able to buy their way to “green”
posturing according to environmentalist critics of the Kyoto Protocol.
2) JOINT IMPLEMENTATION
Joint implementation (JI) is a project-based mechanism by which one Annex I country can invest in a
project that reduces emissions or enhances sequestration in another Annex I country, and receive
credit for the emission reductions or removals achieved through that project. Thus is another means
of redistributing the emission allowances between countries and it will not raise total emissions
allowed.
Thus countries who do BETTER in their emissions reductions than the Kyoto target have an incentive
to keep making those emission reductions because they can sell these “carbon credits” onto other
Annex 1 nations. So far the amount of JI projects has been relatively small.
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3) The CLEAN DEVELOPMENT MECHANISM
Interactive map of CDM projects here. Note the concentration of CDM projects in Brazil, Mexico,
India and China.
The CDM is a project-based mechanism. It is an international level version of a CARBON OFFSET
scheme policed by the UN. CDM credits may be generated from emission reduction projects or from
afforestation and reforestation projects in non-Annex I Parties, in other words in developing nations.
Thus developed nations with Kyoto targets can use projects in developing nations which are certified
by the UN to offset some of their own emissions (essentially allowing them to go beyond their Kyoto
emissions target domestically).
In theory this sort of carbon offsetting system should allow global emissions to be kept down in a
very cost effective manner by allowing heavy polluters in developed nations to offset their additional
emissions against reductions in pollution which can be made much more cheaply in projects in
developing nations. The scheme was slow starting until Kyoto was ratified, only registering its first
project on 18th November 2004. However by April 2008 it registered its 1,000th project and on 6th
January 2010 it reached 2000 projects so it is clear that the CDM is taking off rapidly.
Criticisms of the Clean Development Mechanism:
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Unlike emissions trading and JI, projects under the CDM create new Kyoto units and their
acquisition by Annex I Parties increases the total allowable level of emissions. Thus global
emissions could rise in this scheme.
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CDM is often criticised for not providing ADDITIONALITY. That is if the project is simply one
which would have existed anyway to reduce CO2e without the CDM mechanism then the
project is not actually reducing total emissions. It is allowing something that would have
happened anyway to be counted as an offset against an Annex 1 countries emission
allocation. This means that total emissions would RISE. Nigel Lawson states that the CDM “is
impossible to police and newspaper investigations have revealed the CDM to be little more
than a massive scam.”
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A further criticism is that CDM projects often give money to large polluting firms in the
developing world who will use this additional source of money from making one
factory/plant cleaner to finance the expansion of their polluting activities by building
another factory! Lord Lawson states that this also applies to the Chinese government who
have “imposed a special tax on the proceeds from selling certified emission reductions”
from CFC reduction by Chinese firms which “can then be used to finance its massive coalfired power station building programme.”
George Monbiot, the polemical environmental campaigner, writing in the Guardian, claimed that
“Entrepreneurs in India and China have made billions by building factories whose primary purpose
is to produce greenhouse gases, so that carbon traders in the rich world will pay to clean them up.”
Guardian 17/12/07
“About 30% of all carbon credits come from the sale of trifluoromethane cuts by Chinese and
Indian companies making refrigeration gases. Many of them are still producing this pollutant only
because they make so much money from cleaning it up: the carbon market pays them 47 times
more for these cuts than the gas costs to remove.” Guardian 24/07/08
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