The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensusthat (part one) global warming is occurring and (part two) it is extremely likely that human-made CO2 emissions have predominantly caused it.
The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. There are currently 192 parties (Canada withdrew effective December 2012) to the Protocol.
The Kyoto Protocol implemented the objective of the UNFCCC to fight global warming by reducing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to “a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” (Article 2).
The Protocol is based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities: it puts the obligation to reduce current emissions on developed countries on the basis that they are historically responsible for the current levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Negotiations were held in the framework of the yearly UNFCCC Climate Change Conferences on measures to be taken after the second commitment period ends in 2020.
This resulted in the 2015 adoption of the Paris Agreement, which is a separate instrument under the UNFCCC rather than an amendment of the Kyoto Protocol.
The main goal of the Kyoto Protocol is to control emissions of the main anthropogenic (human-emitted) greenhouse gases (GHGs) in ways that reflect underlying national differences in GHG emissions, wealth, and capacity to make the reductions.
The treaty follows the main principles agreed in the original 1992 UN Framework Convention
According to the treaty, in 2012, Annex I Parties who have ratified the treaty must have fulfilled their obligations of greenhouse gas emissions limitations established for the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period (2008–2012). These emissions limitation commitments are listed in Annex B of the Protocol.
The Kyoto Protocol’s first round commitments are the first detailed step taken within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The Protocol establishes a structure of rolling emission reduction commitment periods.
It set a timetable starting in 2006 for negotiations to establish emission reduction commitments for a second commitment period.
The first period emission reduction commitments expired on December 31, 2012.
