 |
| |
WEEKLY
SECTIONS |
 |
|
 |
| The Kyoto Protocol |
|
|
|
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Saad Rahim Khan
It is becoming increasingly noticeable just how impure our land of the pure is becoming from the amount of emissions other countries release into the air on a daily basis.
Weather patterns in Pakistan are becoming less predictable as monsoons get delayed and summers begin early. Blistering summers and bitter winters serve as permanent reminders to the citizens of our country that the seasons are steadily worsening in their intensity of warmth and coolness respectively. Is this not a matter of concern? Some would say that Pakistan’s current state of turmoil affords little time and resources to be expended on such an issue. However, if it does not deal with this potentially disastrous process, the only foreseeable prognosis is one of ruin.
In the mid-1980s people first began taking notice of the effect pollution was having on the environment. The most alarming sign came from climate change. The rise in temperature’s cause was quickly traced to the increase in the burning of fossil fuels. Scientific findings showed that upon being burnt these fossil fuels gave off warming gases known as greenhouse gases. These included methane, nitrous oxide and most importantly carbon dioxide.
In August 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) came to the conclusion that if the burning of fossil fuels was neither hindered nor halted outright then this ‘Greenhouse Effect’ would be enhanced and lead to ‘an additional warming of the Earth’s surface.’
As a result, the United Nations General Assembly prepared countries assembled from all over the world at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to sign an agreement that would limit emissions. However, the United States refused to sign, stating that further scientific study was required before any such document could be complied with, as well as the divergent path of its own economic interests. Persuading the US, the most prolific emitter of greenhouse gases, to comply was of utmost importance. After much negotiation with several other industrialised states, the US agreed to sign the agreement, albeit a modified, insubstantial one.
In March-April 1995, an agonising reappraisal of the scene showed that few countries had taken heed of the agreement, and that most were still showing consistent increases in greenhouse gas emissions. A committee consisting of high-ranking officials from various nations gathered in Berlin where it was decided that the agreement needed be renegotiated into something far more strict and binding. They prepared a new document known as the ‘Berlin Mandate’, which set solid limits on the countries who had signed the initial agreement. The mandate did not set new targets for developing countries based on the reasoning that their levels of emissions would need to grow in proportion to their increasing social and developmental needs. This reasoning was greatly aided by the fact that it was developed and industrialised countries that were emitting the largest percentage of greenhouse gases.
Industrialised countries argued against the lax attitude shown toward developing countries stating that all the good that the cutbacks on emissions on the part of developed countries did would be undone by the lack of restrictions on the amount of emissions the other countries had to control. The USA especially took a stand requesting that there be a time limit imposed on the developing countries at the very least.
Finally on 11 December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, the parties gathered for a third time and set up what came to be known as the Kyoto Protocol. This protocol differs from the other agreements in that it asks legally binding requirements from its members. However, many developed countries refused to sign the document. While they claimed to fully appreciate the need for reduction of emissions they gave in to the substantial amount of public pressure that came from their fossil fuel industries. Apart from missing signatures the protocol had one other major shortcoming. The negotiating sessions were concluded before the exact details as to a number of issues was decided. This seemingly irrelevant flaw has given way to sizeable ‘loopholes’ in the otherwise strict and unambiguous Kyoto Protocol.
One of these loopholes is the lack of limitations on international air and marine transport. Studies show that these sources, while comparatively small, are increasing. This form of pollution is potentially as potent a threat as the burning of fossil fuels. Plus the weak system of reviewing which countries have not reduced their pollution levels makes the protocol lose effectiveness and any sense of fairness.
While it makes use of lofty ideals and the claim that it favours virtually every person inhabiting the planet, the Kyoto Protocol needs to take into account nations that are heavily dependent on fossil fuel usage, designing a system that may be able to accommodate their burgeoning needs. The protocol places little emphasis on Article 17 which states that nations are allowed to partake in emissions trading, a system through which those countries that do not use up all their ‘units’ of allowed emissions are allowed to sell them to other countries that are in need of using up more than their share of ‘units’. The current arrangement it employs, under the brief and overly vague Article 17, is lacking in incentive due to no penalty on countries that exceed the emissions limit and number of set ‘units’. Certain nations that have no other viable option than to emit the amount of greenhouse gases that they do, lest their economies decline, could be aided greatly by Article 17 if it imposed rules and more straightforward laws as to how they can carry out the key principles of emissions trading. An updated agreement would automatically gain the signatures of many of the missing nations.
Pakistan submitted its instruments for accession on January 11 2005 to the Kyoto Protocol to take steps to become a part of it. Although more needs to be done in Pakistan’s environmental department overall, the Kyoto Protocol has been beneficial to a certain degree but the crucial flaws it has may not just hamper its objectives they may prevent them from being achieved altogether. It is necessary that these mistakes be amended efficiently and speedily. The Kyoto Protocol also needs to be made more prominent as an essential international agreement based on keeping the future green and healthy for people all over the world. The fact remains that developed countries need to abandon finger-pointing at what they deem unscrupulous Third World populations and instead assume responsibility for curbing emissions. Without this shift in thought, as well as the imposition of a more forceful agreement with stringent rules and hard clauses, they will be unable to achieve the end-results so crucially needed.
-The author is a grade 11 student of the International School of Choueifat, Lahore
|
|
|
| Back
| Send
this story to Friend | Print
Version |
|
|
|
ISSN 1563-9479 
