UN official urges Kyoto signatories to maintain momentum in cutting emissions

A top official of the United Nations body monitoring climate change called on the dozens of industrialized nations that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gasses to sustain their momentum as they move toward legally binding targets for cutting carbon emissions by 2012.

With the one-year anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol’s entry into force approaching on Thursday, Richard Kinley, acting head of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat in Bonn, Germany, said that the 34 industrialized countries and the European Economic Commission can reach the targeted cut in greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5 per cent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.

Many of these countries were “on their way to lower their emission levels by at least 3.5 per cent below 1990 levels during the first commitment period,” Mr. Kinley said. By using additional measures and Kyoto market-based mechanisms, they will reach their greed reduction targets as a group, he added.

At the same time, Mr. Kinley urged many Parties to the Protocol to intensify their efforts.

“Setting these actions in motion will be the success of Kyoto, but more is needed,” said Mr. Kinley, adding that the Protocol’s implementation will drive the technology innovation needed to further reduce emissions.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the189-party convention that includes the signatories of the Kyoto treaty, the binding pact that requires industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. A total of 160 Parties to the Kyoto Protocol have now ratified the treaty.

At a UNFCCC conference held in Montreal in November, officials finalized the ‘rule book' of the Kyoto Protocol, putting into concrete form the 1997 landmark treaty.

Under the ‘rule book,’ the treaty’s Parties created a Joint Implementation Supervisory Board to oversee the Kyoto mechanism that allows developed countries to invest in central and eastern European transition economies and others. This mechanism lets them earn carbon allowances which they can use to meet their emission reduction commitments.

In addition, the ‘clean development mechanism’ has been fully established, letting industrialized countries invest in sustainable development projects in developing countries, thereby earning carbon allowances.

Christine Zumkeller, coordinator of the Mechanisms Programme, said the clean development mechanism could generate more than 700 million tones of emission reductions by the end of 2012, the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.

“This is almost as much as the annual greenhouse gas emissions of Canada,” she added.

Reports submitted by industrialized countries to the UNFCCC Secretariat at the beginning of this year show the progress being made in setting policies and enacting relevant legislation and regulatory frameworks.

For example, new policies put in place by the 15 countries that were European Union members when the Kyoto treaty was adopted in 1997 have cut emissions by 1.7 per cent compared to 1990 levels. This amount is equal to the annual greenhouse gas emission of Denmark or Bulgaria, the UNFCC said.