Hello readers! We welcome you back to yet another post on climate change. As promised, we will be looking at both the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement today. As daughter legislations to the UNFCCC, we can expect to see many similar ideas and concepts that are better fleshed out. Without further ado, lets dive right in!
Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol was made to operationalise the UNFCCC. Unlike the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol does not define the meaning of “climate change” or “greenhouse gases”. Nonetheless, we can still infer their meaning by looking at the protocol itself.
Under Article 3.1, it is mentioned that the greenhouse gases of concern under the Kyoto Protocol are listed in Annex A, namely: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) (UNFCCC, 1997). We have described all of them in our previous post looking at the types of greenhouse gases, note that HFCs, PFCs, and SF6 all fall under fluorinated gases! More interestingly, certain greenhouse gases are actually excluded from the Kyoto Protocol itself. Many subsections, including Article 2.1(a)(ii), explicitly mentioned the phrase “greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol”, excluding them from the consideration of the Kyoto Protocol as well.
The Montreal Protocol targeted ozone-depleting compounds that are mostly halocarbons, including chlorofluorocarbons, halons and hydrofluorocarbons (DAWE, n.d.). This shows that newer policies are structured and considered around what have already been in force. While some ozone-depleting compounds are also greenhouse gases which causes two distinct problems, the exclusion ensures no overlap and redundancies between the two policies. After all, the Montreal Protocol already considered the harm of these ozone-depleting compounds as greenhouse gases and have successfully reduced its emissions to the environment (UNEnvironment, n.d.).
For our readers who are not familiar with the terms, allow us to help you understand what some of the prefixes and suffixes mean:
Prefix/Suffix | Meaning
Hydro- | Hydrogen containing compound
Fluoro- | Fluorine containing compound
Halo- | Halogen containing compound
-carbon | Carbon containing compound
Paris Agreement
Up next, we will look at the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement came into force rather recently and it should be on many of our reader’s minds when some countries surfaced their discontent with the treaty (McGrath, 2018). Like the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement did not explicitly defined climate change. However, the purpose of the Paris Agreement should be aligned with those set in the UNFCCC as it was the basis of the Paris Agreement. One differing aspect in the Paris Agreement is in Article 2.1(a), where it is explicitly mentioned that parties should attain the 2 degrees climate scenario and strive to attain the 1.5 degree warming scenario (UNFCCC, 2015). This effect-based approach is in addition to the process-based approach used in the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. While we have discussed previously in our land pollution blog over our preference of laws looking at the process of pollution rather than its effects, we do not think that having two of them together is redundant. Article 2.1(a) can be seen as an insurance: even if countries fail to achieve their emission targets, they are obligated to reach the effect-target, which is to prevent a warming of more than 2 degrees (Plumer & Popovich, 2018).
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreements are all treaties implemented to flesh out the UNFCCC. In their attempts to do so, certain elements have been added, such as the exclusion of greenhouse gases which are also ozone-depleting substances controlled in the Montreal Protocol, as well as the inclusion of the effect-based targets in the Paris Agreement. In our last and final post on international laws on climate change, we shall tie it all back together and compare our definitions of climate change with those in the UNFCCC and her daughter treaties. Stay tuned~
Lee Yang
References
DAWE. (n.d.). Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. Retrieved from https://www.environment.gov.au/protection/ozone/montreal-protocol#:~:text=The%20Montreal%20Protocol%20sets%20binding,such%20as%20hydrochlorofluorocarbons%20(HCFCs)
McGrath, M. (2018). Paris climate pullout: The worst is yet to come. BBC. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44330709
Plumer, B., & Popovich, N. (2018). The World Still Isn’t Meeting Its Climate Goals. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/07/climate/world-emissions-paris-goals-not-on-track.html
UNEnvironment. (n.d.). The Montreal Protocol. Retrieved from https://www.unenvironment.org/ozonaction/who-we-are/about-montreal-protocol
UNFCCC. (1997, 2020). What is the Kyoto Protocol? Retrieved from https://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol
UNFCCC. (2015, 2020). What is the Paris Agreement? Retrieved from https://cop23.unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/what-is-the-paris-agreement