The Hindu Business Line : Life breath for Kyoto Protocol

LIKE PHOENIX, THE Kyoto Protocol will rise, with Duma, Russia's lower house of Parliament, ratifying the pact, and clearing the way for the long-delayed climate change treaty to come into force worldwide. The UN-brokered 1997 accord, which aims to fight global warming, was backed by 126 countries, but needed to be ratified by nations accounting for at least 55 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. Russia, which accounts for 17 per cent, became the key to the Protocol's survival after the US (which emits 36 per cent) pulled out in 2001. Now the Kyoto Protocol will represent 61 per cent of developed nations' emissions, and should come into effect 90 days after "sufficient ratification"; the nod of the Russian Parliament's Upper House and the President, Mr Vladimir Putin, is taken for granted.

Recognising that developed countries are most responsible for climate change and that they have the resources to reduce emissions better than developing nations, the Kyoto Protocol expects rich countries to cut overall emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide by 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. It does not insist on the developing nations doing this initially. For, while some of them such as China and India, have total emissions higher than, say, Australia, they have large populations too. Thus, the greenhouse gas generated by one Australian equals that of 20 Indians or 10 Chinese. Yet, Washington says the exemption is unfair. Terming the pact costly to implement, the US claims to be tackling climate change challenges in other ways, such as offering incentives to cut the greenhouse gas intensity to 18 per cent by 2012, and developing cleaner energy and sequestration technologies.

But, warts and all, the Kyoto Protocol still is one of the first attempts at a clean development mechanism (CDM) to promote emission reduction and move towards trading in greenhouse gas emissions. The Protocol endorses a market-based mechanism that will allow countries and industries to trade their emissions, rather than rely on taxes or other methods of control. This opens up a new commodities market — for carbon emissions — and is spawning an industry around it. The amount of carbon dioxide traded in Europe has almost tripled after Russia said it would ratify the Protocol last month. About 670,000 tonnes of CERs (certified emission reductions) were traded in October first week, according to an Oslo-based consultancy, after a record 1 million tonnes in September.

A trade mechanism also spawns carbon-reducing technologies in the developing countries. For instance, Gujarat Fluorochemicals has got the approval of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change for a CDM project. India — which can also boast of a mentor-trader company, SenergyGlobal, that buys carbon credits from Indian companies to sell to developed countries — has taken the lead in the national CDM effort too, though it, along with China, is yet to ratify the Protocol. The Ministry of Environment and Forests has approved 26 CDM projects. Russia may have revived the Kyoto Protocol in letter, but a tribal hamlet in Andhra Pradesh's Adilabad district show-cased its spirit when last October it sold 147 tonnes of verified carbon dioxide reductions to the World Bank.

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