Kyoto Protocol and Copenhagen Accord

Question 1

What was the Kyoto Protocol?

Answer 1

The Kyoto protocol was the first agreement between nations to set country-by-country reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions.

Question 2

When did it happen?

Answer 2

The treaty was finalized in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, after years of negotiations, and it became legally binding in 2005.

Nearly all nations have now ratified the treaty, with the notable exception of the United States.

Question 3

Why weren’t China and India part of the agreement?

Answer 3

Developing countries, including China and India, weren’t forced to agree to reducing emissions, given that they’d contributed a relatively small share of the current century-plus build-up of CO2.

Question 4

Under Kyoto, industrialised nations pledged to cut their yearly emissions of carbon, by varying amounts.
In the EU as a whole, emissions should have been reduced by how much?

Answer 4

8%

Question 5

What was the idea behind the Protocol?

Answer 5

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the face of increasing evidence for climate change that has been sped-up by emissions.

Question 6

What does the Copenhagen Accord try to do?

Answer 6

It recognises the need to limit global temperatures rising no more than 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial levels.

Question 7

At the Paris climate conference in December 2015, 195 countries adopted the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate deal. What did this do?

Answer 7

The agreement sets out a global action plan to put the world on track to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C.

The agreement is due to enter into force in 2020.

This puts into internationally agreed law, the ideas of the Copenhagen Accord. This is a significant milestone.