UNFCCC, 1992

The nations which participated in the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development, 1992 [UNCED] held at Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and which were determined to
protect the climate system for present and future generations, signed the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change, 1992 on 9th May, 1992 which ultimately came into
force on 21st March 1994.
The ultimate objective of UNFCCC is to achieve stabilization of GHGs concentration in the
atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climatic
system. The UNFCCC aims at achieving such a level within a time frame sufficient to allow
ecosystem to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened
and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner [Article 2].
Article 3 of the Convention states that the Contracting States shall be guided by the following
principles:
The parties shall protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future
generations of mankind, on the basis of their equity and in accordance with their common
but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.
The parties should take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimize the
causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects. Where there are threats of
serious or irreversible damages, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a
reason for postponing such measures taking into account that policies and measures to
deal with climate change should be cost effective so, as to ensure global benefits at the
lowest possible costs.
The parties have a right to sustainable development and should promote sustainable
development.
The parties should co-operate to promote a support and open an international economic
system that would lead to sustainable economic growth and development in all States,
particularly developing countries parties, thus enabling them better to address the
problem of climate change.
Article 4(1) further requires that all parties, in accordance with their differentiated responsibilities
and capabilities to formulate and implement programs which mitigate the adverse effects of
climate change and facilitate adaptation to it; promote and co-operate in developing and applying
and transferring technologies which reduces or prevents emissions of GHGs; promotes sustainable
management and conservation of sinks and reservoirs of all greenhouse gases; and take account of
climate change and economic and environmental programs.
Initially, the developed countries are required to make and initiate measures to limit their GHGs
emissions with the aim of returning individually or jointly to their 1990s level by the end of the
decade i.e. year 2000, and enhance their sinks and reservoirs.
Article 5 of the Convention provides that the parties shall support and further develop international
and intergovernmental programs and networks or organizations aimed at defining, conducting,
 assessing and financing research and data collection and systematic observation, taking into
account the need of minimizing duplication of efforts.
Similarly, Article 6 provides that in carrying out their commitments under Article 4, the parties
shall:
Promote and facilitate at the national, regional and sub-regional levels, the development
and implementation of educational and public awareness programs on climate change and
its effects
Public access to information on climate change and its effects
Public participation in addressing climate change and its effects and developing adequate
responses
Training of scientific, technical and managerial personnel.
Article 7 sets in motion the establishment of COP which is to be the supreme body of the
Convention. The COP shall keep under regular review the implementation of Convention and any
related legal instruments that the COP may adopt and shall make within its mandate the decisions
necessary to promote the effective implementation of Convention. The COP shall adopt in its own
rules of procedures as well as those subsidiaries bodies established by the Convention.
Article 9 of the Convention provides for the establishment of a subsidiary body for scientific and
technological advice to provide COP and other subsidiary bodies, timely information and advice
on scientific and technological matters relating the Convention. The subsidiary body shall:
Provide assessment of the State of scientific knowledge relating to climate change & its
effects;
Prepare scientific assessments on the effects of measures taken in the implementation of
the Convention;
Identify innovative, efficient and state of the art technologies and know-how & advice on
the ways and means of promoting developing and transferring such technologies;
Provide advice on scientific programs, international co-operation in research and
development related to climate change, as well as on ways and means of supporting
endogenous capacity-building in developing countries;
Respond to scientific, technological and methodological questions that the COP and its
subsidiary body may put.
Article 14 provides for the settlement of disputes. In case of any disputes between the parties, the
UNFCCC provides the following methods for settlement of disputes resolution:
Through Negotiation;
Voluntary submission to ICJ;
Voluntary submission to Arbitration;
Conciliation.
Article 15 and 16 provides for adoption and amendment to the Convention.
Article 17 talks about Adoption of Protocols to this Convention.
At last, Article 24 provides that there cannot be any reservation to this Convention.
Till date, the Kyoto protocol is the only Protocol to this Convention.
 KYOTO PROTOCOL, 1997
Negotiations for a Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
commenced in 1995 after the first COP meeting in Berlin. Determined that the commitments
provided in Article 4 of the Convention were not adequate and decided to launch a process to
strengthen the commitments of Annex I parties through the adoption of a Protocol.
The group set a deadline namely, Kyoto Conference to establish legally binding targets for
reducing emissions in CO2, methane, nitrous oxide. Therefore, a Conference was held at Kyoto on
climate change on December 1, 1997 to review the progress made in 5yrs from UNFCCC and to
formulate plans and strategies and objectives for the future.
The Kyoto Protocol was adopted on the 3rd COP and was opened for signature on 16th March
1998. The Protocol has 28 Articles and 2 Annexes:
Annex I: Greenhouse Gases
Annex II: Developed Nations
Non-Annex Nations: Developing Nations [in real, there is no such annex like this, but foe
the convenience of all the parties, the developing nations have been categorized as Non-
annex Countries]
The parties to UNFCCC, in pursuit of its ultimate objectives as stated in Article 2 of UNFCCC
agreed to fulfill the obligations contained in UNFCCC through Kyoto Protocol.
The Protocol came into force on February 16th, 2005.
The Kyoto Protocol is a complex regime addressing both adaptation and mitigation, and gave
effect to the principle in the UNFCCC that developed countries should lead in emissions reduction.
This is articulated through the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities that stems
from the Rio Declaration, 1992. Accordingly, the Protocol places different obligations for
developed countries i.e. Annex II countries, and developing countries i.e. Non-Annex Countries.
The basic obligation accepted by the Annex I countries is set out in Article 3(1) which provides
that parties shall individually or jointly, ensure that their aggregate or anthropogenic CO2
emissions of GHGs listed in Annex I does not exceed their assigned amount.
Further, the Protocol provided that in the pre-commitment period up until 2005, each Annex
parties are required to have made demonstrable progress in achieving its commitments under the
Protocol. The first commitment period commences in 2008 and continues up till 2012. However,
parties with economies in transition need not 1990 as their base year, but rather can use a different
base year calculated in accordance with Art 3(5).
Six gases are covered by the emissions reduction commitments of the Annex II parties: CO2,
methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulphur hexafluoride. [rests are
covered under the Vienna Convention].
THE MECHANISMS UNDER KYOTO PROTOCOL: Under the Protocol, parties are allowed to
meet their targets by using the so called flexible mechanisms which are three:
JOINT IMPLEMENTATION [ARTICLE 6]: Article 6 provides that for the purpose of
meeting its commitments under Article 3 any Annex II party may transfer or acquire from
 any Annex II party the Emission Reduction Credits (ERCs) resulting from projects
aimed at reducing anthropogenic removals by sinks of GHGs in any sector of the
economy. This method was first introduced in the 1991 during the negotiations of
Climate Change Convention by Developed Countries. Under Article 6, both the host and
the donor countries have commitments and so, there will be no overall change in the
assigned global amounts for the Annex II countries because emissions reduced in the host
countries and deducted from its assigned amounts are added to the assigned amounts of
the donor countries.
CLEAN DEVELOPMENT MECHANISM (CDM) [ARTICLE 12]: The CDM allows
Annex II parties to carry on emissions reductions projects in Non-annex parties and use
the Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs) accruing from such project activities to
contribute to compliance with part of their quantified emissions limitations and reduction
commitments under Article 3. A share of the proceeds of such projects must be used to
cover administrative expenses as well as to assist developing countries parties that are
particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change to meet the costs of
adaptation. Therefore, the stated purpose of CDM is to help the developing countries
achieve sustainable development and the developed countries to achieve their emissions
commitments.

In simple terms, developed countries pay for the projects undertaken in the developing
countries. Article 12 further provides that CER obtained between 2000-2005 can be used
to assist in achieving compliance in the first commitment period.

On the surface, CDM is an attractive concept to both developed and developing

countries. Developed countries are provided with an opportunity to achieve their
commitments more cost-effectively, while developing countries can be helped to achieve
their developmental and environmental goals through investments and clean development
which they might otherwise not be able to afford. However, in reality CDM contains a
number of serious weakness which means it could not only fail to deliver clean
development but could actually allow global emissions to increase rather than decrease.
For instance, it allows developed countries to add CERs generated from projects from
developing countries to their assigned amounts. Thus, credits generated through CDM are
additional to the total budget or assigned amounts of Annex II countries.

EMISSIONS TRADING [ARTICLE 17]: Article 17 allows the Annex II parties to

participate in emissions trading for the purpose of fulfilling their commitments under
Article 3 but provides that any such trading must be supplemental to domestic actions
taken to achieve emissions reductions. This mechanism works by setting a legally
binding limit on each partys emission and then permitting parties to trade part of this.
This means that developed countries whose emissions are less than their assigned amount
can sell their unused portion to countries whose emissions exceed their assigned amounts.
The net result is the same as if both countries achieved their commitments, since
 emissions are deducted from the assigned amounts of the selling countries and added to
the assigned amounts of the buying countries.

Many economists believe this system to be an economically effective means of achieving

global emissions reductions. However, the main defect of this mechanism is that in case,
if a developing country exceeds its assigned amount, the there is no way of penalizing
that country.

Further, Article 19 deals with the amendments to the provisions or the annexes to this Protocol and
also deals with addition of new provisions or annexes to the Protocol.
Article 25 provides that there can be no reservations for any provisions to the present Protocol.
Till the year 2008-2010 (3 years), Luxemburg and Canada were the farthest from their emissions
targets. They crossed their targets by 30% and 29% respectively. Similarly, other countries that
emitted more than their target levels are Austria, Iceland, New Zealand, US, Australia, Denmark,
Switzerland, Norway, Italy, Japan, Ireland, Netherland.
Countries like Finland, Belgium, Croatia, Portugal, Germany, France, Greece, UK, Sweden are in
comfortable positions having a surplus of emissions. Lastly, Ukraine is the target over-supplier of
Kyoto units with -55%.
Further, China and India are becoming important players in the global GHGs arena. The CO2
emissions in these countries have increased by 9% and 6% respectively as on 2011.