Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol is the answer to minimize green house gases.

During the 1990s scientists were worried about the climate due to the
Earths temperature increasing. The cause of this was greenhouse
gases; Greenhouse gases are the gases in the atmosphere that help
trap heat in the earth.
Some of those gases are: water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane,
nitrous oxide, ozone and CFCs.
These gases are what trap the heat within the Earths atmosphere. This
is what causes the change in the temperature.

This diagram shows the greenhouse gas

Fig1

effect.
The Kyoto Protocol, This is a treaty that helps reduce the greenhouse
gases, it was introduced in the year 1997, Countries signed the treaty
on the 11th of December 1997 however it wasnt till 16th of February
that it went into affect. This is because the treaty required more than

55 counties to participate/sign it, Therefore when Russia the 55th

country signed it went into effect
The goals of Kyoto were to see participants collectively reducing
emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2% below the emission levels of
1990 by 2012.
Countries that were developing like China and India didnt have to sign
it as the they are growing, they couldnt reduce their Co2 emissions as
they need to burn coal in order to continue to develop.
They werent seen as the main countries that produce Greenhouse
gases.
The following 2 countries have refused the agreement;
Australia- They concluded that the treaty would damage their
economy and that the consequence
of this is that jobs would be
lost therefore they didnt sign it. Australia is one of the largest coal
exporters in 2011 it exported 315 tones. Australia has the highest Co2
emissions per capita in the world with 18.6 metric tons.
America- America are the largest Co2 producers, They didnt sign it
either same reasons as the Australia as they believed it would damage
the economy, also they believed that if they sign it they wouldnt
compete with other developing countries like China and India.
Furthermore America had a recession so they believed that signing it
would have a massive impact on it. The Second highest country that
produces Co2 emissions with 18 tons per capita

Fig 2

The Kyoto Protocol was successful at the same time as a fail as the
time period which the countries should decrease their Co2 emissions
levels by 5%

This Graphs shows the score that each

country got for reducing their greenhouse
gases. So for example if a nation had a -10%
target but its emissions increased by 10% it
scores -20, of if it had a 5% target but cut by
15% it scores 10 this means they take the
difference of they predicted decrease against
the actual one
As you can see in the Graph Canada
received the worst score with -23.4, this
could be due to a number of factors like
Canadian winters, contributes to Canada's
high hydrocarbon consumption. As
temperatures drop, fuel consumption rises
and fuel efficiency drops.

In conclusion the overall effectiveness of the

Kyoto protocol has been possible as there are more positive results in
the graph (blue lines) than there are red. The Russian Federation was
the 4th largest co2 producer per capita you wouldnt expect them to be
positive because when you look at the
other top 3 countries they either havent signed it or had received a
bad score like Canadas Fig 3
score. This shows that countries
have reduced their
greenhouse gas emissions
however it is still too
high. But with technology
becoming more developed this would soon be different. More energy
efficient ways to burn or extract ores have been found and the
renewable energy also has had a boost in the last few years and is still
continuing to grow.

Bibliography
Fig.1 - http://forces.si.edu/atmosphere/02_04_07.html
Fig 2 Shown on image
Fig 3
-http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2012/nov/26/kyotoprotocol-carbon-emissions