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Climate Change
Climate change caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is one of the most serious threats facing the world today.
Achieving substantial reductions in global GHG emissions will require a concerted international effort involving governments and corporations acting under international treaties as well as independent action by businesses and individuals prepared to take responsibility for their own GHG footprint. In addition to direct reductions of greenhouse gas emissions at source, a supplementary option is to contribute to activities that reduce greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere by acquiring emission reduction credits from these projects.
The Kyoto Protocol, the Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation
The international political response to climate change began with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted in 1992. Designed to raise awareness and build knowledge about the challenges and barriers faced by climate change mitigation, the UNFCCC set out a framework for action aimed at stabilising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.
The Kyoto Protocol to the Convention, which was adopted in 1997 by more than 170 countries, significantly strengthened the UNFCCC by committing many industrialised countries and economies in transition, the so-called ‘Annex 1 countries ’, to individual, legally-binding targets to limit or reduce their overall emissions of greenhouse gases by at least 5% below the 1990 levels of emission during the period 2008-2012.
In addition to setting the first ever international target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the Kyoto Protocol established, for the first time, a means for developing countries to get involved in climate change mitigation, enabling a market-based solution to an environmental problem and bringing the issue of greenhouse gases to the mainstream of clean energy planning.
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