Criticism of the Kyoto Protocol
Encyclopedia
Criticism of the Kyoto Protocol
Some argue the protocol does not go far enough to curb greenhouse emissions and avoid dangerous climate changeAvoiding Dangerous Climate Change
The related terms "avoiding dangerous climate change" and "preventing dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system" date to 1995 and earlier, in the Second Assesment Report of the International Panel on Climate Change and previous science it cites.In 2002, the United Nations...
(Niue
Niue
Niue , is an island country in the South Pacific Ocean. It is commonly known as the "Rock of Polynesia", and inhabitants of the island call it "the Rock" for short. Niue is northeast of New Zealand in a triangle between Tonga to the southwest, the Samoas to the northwest, and the Cook Islands to...
, The Cook Islands
Cook Islands
The Cook Islands is a self-governing parliamentary democracy in the South Pacific Ocean in free association with New Zealand...
, and Nauru
Nauru
Nauru , officially the Republic of Nauru and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country in Micronesia in the South Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in Kiribati, to the east. Nauru is the world's smallest republic, covering just...
added notes to this effect when signing the protocol).
Some environmental economists
Environmental economics
Environmental economics is a subfield of economics concerned with environmental issues. Quoting from the National Bureau of Economic Research Environmental Economics program:...
have been critical of the Kyoto Protocol. Many see the costs of the Kyoto Protocol as outweighing the benefits, some believing the standards which Kyoto sets to be too optimistic, others seeing a highly inequitable and inefficient agreement which would do little to curb greenhouse gas emissions. There are also economists who believe that an entirely different approach needs to be followed than the approach suggested by the Kyoto Protocol.
Base year as 1990 controversy
Further, there is controversy surrounding the use of 1990 as a base year, as well as not using per capita emissions as a basis. Countries had different achievements in energy efficiency in 1990. For example, the former Soviet Union and eastern European countries did little to tackle the problem and their energy efficiency was at its worst level in 1990, the year just before their communist regimes fell. On the other hand, JapanJapan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, as a big importer of natural resources, had to improve its efficiency after the 1973 oil crisis
1973 oil crisis
The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC proclaimed an oil embargo. This was "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war. It lasted until March 1974. With the...
and its emissions level in 1990 was better than most developed countries. However, such efforts were set aside, and the inactivity of the former Soviet Union was overlooked and could even generate big income due to the emission trade. There is an argument that the use of per capita emissions as a basis in the following Kyoto-type treaties can reduce the sense of inequality among developed and developing countries alike, as it can reveal inactivities and responsibilities among countries.
James Hansen's criticism
James E. Hansen, director of NASANASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
’s Goddard
Robert H. Goddard
Robert Hutchings Goddard was an American professor, physicist and inventor who is credited with creating and building the world's first liquid-fueled rocket, which he successfully launched on March 16, 1926...
Institute for Space Studies and eminent climate scientist, has claimed that the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place at the Bella Center
Bella Center
Bella Center is Scandinavia's largest exhibition and conference center, located in Copenhagen, Denmark. Located in Ørestad between the city centre and Copenhagen Airport, it offers an indoor area of 121.800 m² and has a capacity of 20,000 peopleAmong the larger annual events are the Copenhagen...
in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, between December 7-18, 2009 (which includes the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an international environmental treaty produced at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development , informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to 14, 1992...
and the 5th Meeting of the Parties (COP/MOP 5) to the Kyoto Protocol is a 'farce' and planned to boycott
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
it because it was seeking a counter-productive agreement to limit emissions through an inefficient and indulgent “cap and trade” system. “They are selling indulgence
Indulgence
In Catholic theology, an indulgence is the full or partial remission of temporal punishment due for sins which have already been forgiven. The indulgence is granted by the Catholic Church after the sinner has confessed and received absolution...
s there" Hansen states. "The developed nations want to continue basically business as usual so they are expected to purchase indulgences to give some small amount of money to developing countries. They do that in the form of offsets and adaptation funds.” Hansen prefers a progressive “carbon tax
Carbon tax
A carbon tax is an environmental tax levied on the carbon content of fuels. It is a form of carbon pricing. Carbon is present in every hydrocarbon fuel and is released as carbon dioxide when they are burnt. In contrast, non-combustion energy sources—wind, sunlight, hydropower, and nuclear—do not...
”, not the Kyoto Protocol “cap and trade” system; this tax would begin at the equivalent of about $1 per gallon of petrol and revenues would all be returned directly to members of the public as a dividend inversely proportional to their carbon footprint..
"So, for example, in the Kyoto Protocol, that was very ineffective. Even the countries that took on supposedly the strongest requirements, like Japan for example—if you look at its actual emissions, its actual fossil fuel use, you see that their CO2 emissions actually increased even though they were supposed to decrease. Because their coal use increased and they used offsets to meet their objective. Offsets don’t help significantly. That’s why the approach that Copenhagen is using to specify goals for emission reductions and then to allow offsets to accomplish much of that reduction is really a fake. And that has to be exposed. Otherwise, just like in the Kyoto Protocol, we’ll realize 10 years later, oops, it really didn’t do much."
Green organisations' criticism
Rising Tide North AmericaRising Tide North America
Rising Tide North America is a grassroots network of groups and individuals in North America who take action against the root causes of climate change and work towards a just transition to a non-carbon society. Rising Tide North America is part of an international network dedicated to building a...
claims:
"Emission limits do not include emissions by international aviation and shipping, but are in addition to the industrial gases, chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which are dealt with under the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. The benchmark 1990 emission levels were accepted by the Conference of the Parties of UNFCCC (decision 2/CP.3)"
Criticism of Carbon Trade
There are a large number of critics of carbon trading as a control mechanism. Critics include environmental justice nongovernmental organizations, economists, labor organizations and those concerned about energy supply and excessive taxation. Some see carbon trading as a government takeover of the free market. They argue that trading pollution allowances should be avoided because they result in failures in accounting, dubious science and the destructive impacts of projects upon local peoples and environments. Instead, they advocate making reductions at the source of pollution and energy policies that are justice-based and community-driven. Many argue that that emissions trading schemes based upon cap and trade will necessarily reduce jobs and incomes. Most of the criticisms have focused on the carbon market created through investment in Kyoto Mechanisms. Criticism of cap-and-trade emissions trading has generally been more limited to lack of credibility in the first phase of the EU ETS.Critics argue that emissions trading does little to solve pollution problems overall, since groups that do not pollute sell their conservation to the highest bidder. Overall reductions would need to come from a sufficient reduction of allowances available in the system.
Regulatory agencies run the risk of issuing too many emission credits, diluting the effectiveness of regulation, and practically removing the cap. In this case, instead of a net reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, beneficiaries of emissions trading simply pollute more. The National Allocation Plans by member governments of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme were criticised for this when it became apparent that actual emissions would be less than the government-issued carbon allowances at the end of Phase I of the scheme. Certain emissions trading schemes have been criticised for the practice of grandfathering, where polluters are given free allowances by governments, instead of being made to pay for them. Critics instead advocate for auctioning the credits. The proceeds could be used for research and development of sustainable technology.
Critics of carbon trading, such as Carbon Trade Watch
Carbon Trade Watch
Carbon Trade Watch is an independent research collective working on climate change and climate policy from a justice-based perspective. It was formerly part of the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute....
, argue that it places disproportionate emphasis on individual lifestyles and carbon footprints, distracting attention from the wider, systemic changes and collective political action that needs to be taken to tackle climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
resulting from global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
. Groups such as the Corner House
The Corner House (organisation)
The Corner House is a not for profit company limited by guarantee founded in 1997 in the United Kingdom. According to its website, it aims "to support democratic & community movements for environmental & social justice"...
have argued that the market will choose the easiest means to save a given quantity of carbon in the short term, which may be different to the pathway required to obtain sustained and sizable reductions over a longer period, and so a market-led approach is likely to reinforce technological lock-in. For instance, small cuts may often be achieved cheaply through investment in making a technology more efficient, where larger cuts would require scrapping the technology and using a different one. They also argue that emissions trading is undermining alternative approaches to pollution control with which it does not combine well, and so the overall effect it is having is to actually stall significant change to less polluting technologies.
The corresponding uncertainty under a tax is the level of emissions reductions achieved.
The Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
published an article about cap-and-trade systems which argued that "Carbon markets create a muddle" and "...leave much room for unverifiable manipulation".
More recent criticism of emissions trading regarding implementation is that old growth forests, which have slow carbon absorption rates, are being cleared and replaced with fast-growing vegetation, to the detriment of the local communities.
Recent proposals for alternative schemes to avoid the problems of cap-and-trade schemes include Cap and Share
Cap and Share
Cap and Share was originally developed by Feasta and is a regulatory and economic framework for controlling the use of fossil fuels in relation to climate stabilisation...
, which was being actively considered by the Irish Parliament in May 2008, and the Sky Trust schemes. These schemes state that cap-and-trade or cap-and-tax schemes inherently impact the poor and those in rural areas, who have less choice in energy consumption options.
James Hansen
- http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/12/nasa-climate-change-scientist-to-boycott-copenhagen-climate-summit.php Tree HuggerTree huggerTree hugger may refer to:* A slang, sometimes derogatory, term for environmentalists* Chipko movement, an environmental movement in India* TreeHugger, a sustainability website* The Tree Hugger Project, Environmental Art Project...
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/18/nasa-climate-change-james-hansen The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/Environment/article/285582 Toronto StarToronto StarThe Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
- http://www.ecofactory.com/news/top-nasa-climate-scientist-copenhagen-must-fail-120309
Hansen quotes over climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
at British scientific journal
Scientific journal
In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past...
Nature (journal)
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
- http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0912/full/climate.2009.127.html nature.com
- http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0912/full/climate.2009.124.html
- http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0905/full/climate.2009.42.html
- http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0905/full/climate.2009.41.html
- http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0905/full/climate.2009.34.html
- http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0903/full/climate.2009.19.html
- http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0902/full/climate.2009.3.html
- http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0812/full/climate.2008.122.html
- http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0802/full/climate.2008.3.html
- http://www.nature.com/climate/2007/0709/full/climate.2007.41.html
- http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0901/full/climate.2008.142.html