START

START: Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
Bilateral treaty between US and USSR on limitation and reductions of strategic offensive arms; signed on July31, 1991 and came into force on Dec 16, 1994. It barred its signatories from deploying more than 6,000 nuclear warheads atop a total of 1,600 ICBMs, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and bombers.
Implementation:
USSR disintegrated 5 months after signing this treaty. The newly formed states of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have disposed of all their nuclear weapons or transferred them to Russia; while the U.S. and Russia have reduced the capacity of delivery vehicles to 1,600 each, with no more than 6,000 warheads. START I expired December 5, 2009. On March 17, 2009, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev signaled that Russia would begin a "large-scale" rearmament and renewal of Russia's nuclear arsenal. President Medvedev accused NATO of pushing ahead with expansion near Russian borders. As of May 4, 2009, the United States and Russia began the process of renegotiating START. Both sides agreed to make further cuts in the number of warheads they have deployed to around 1,000 to 1,500 each

Kyoto Protocol

Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC), aimed at fighting global warming. The UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty with the goal of achieving "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. The Protocol was initially adopted on 11 December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan and entered into force on 16 February 2005. As of July 2010, 191 states have signed and ratified the protocol.

Under the Protocol:

(i) 37 countries ("Annex I countries") commit themselves to a reduction of four greenhouse gases (GHG) (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride) and two groups of gases (hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons) produced by them, Annex I countries agreed to reduce their collective greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% from the 1991 level. Emission limits do not include emissions by international aviation and shipping, but are in addition to the industrial gases,chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which are dealt with under the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

(ii) All member countries give general commitments.

The five principal concepts of the Kyoto Protocol are:

§ Legally binding commitments for Annex I countries. Only the Annex I countries in 1997, were seen as having the economic capacity to commit themselves and their industry were made to commit to the protocols limitations.

§ Implementation: In order to meet the objectives of the Protocol, Annex I countries are required to prepare policies and measures for the reduction of greenhouse gases in their respective countries. In addition, they are required to increase the absorption of these gases and utilize all mechanisms available, such as joint implementation, the clean development mechanism and emissions trading, in order to be rewarded with credits that would allow more greenhouse gas emissions at home.

§ Minimizing Impacts on Developing Countries by establishing an adaptation fund for climate change.

§ Accounting, Reporting and Review in order to ensure the integrity of the Protocol.

§ Compliance: Establishing a Compliance Committee to enforce compliance with the commitments under the Protocol.

Flexible mechanisms

§ The Protocol defines three "flexibility mechanisms" that can be used by Annex I countries in meeting their emission reduction commitments:

(i) International Emissions Trading (IET)

(ii) Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)

(iii) Joint Implementation (JI)

§ IET allows Annex I countries to "trade" their emissions (Assigned Amount Units, AAUs, or "allowances" for short). For IET, the economic basis for providing this flexibility is that the marginal cost of emission abatement differs among countries. Trade could potentially allow the Annex I countries to meet their emission reduction commitments at a reduced cost. This is because trade allows emissions to be abated first in countries where the costs of abatement are lowest, thus increasing the efficiency of the Kyoto agreement.

§ The CDM and JI are called "project-based mechanisms," in that they generate emission reductions from projects. The difference between IET and the project-based mechanisms is that IET is based on the setting of a quantitative restriction of emissions, while the CDM and JI are based on the idea of "production" of emission reductions. The CDM is designed to encourage production of emission reductions in non-Annex I countries, while JI encourages production of emission reductions in Annex I countries.

§ The production of emission reductions generated by the CDM and JI can be used by Annex B countries in meeting their emission reduction commitments. The emission reductions produced by the CDM and JI are both measured against a hypothetical baseline of emissions that would have occurred in the absence of a particular emission reduction project. The emission reductions produced by the CDM are called Certified Emission Reductions (CERs); reductions produced by JI are called Emission Reduction Units (ERUs). The reductions are called "credits" because they are emission reductions credited against a hypothetical baseline of emissions.

Principle of UNFCC:

UNFCCC adopts a principle of "Common but differentiated responsibilities". The parties agreed that:

1. The largest share of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases originated in developed countries;

2. Per capita emissions in developing countries are still relatively low;

3. The share of global emissions originating in developing countries will grow to meet social and development needs.

Enforcement:

If the enforcement branch determines that an annex I country is not in compliance with its emissions limitation, then that country is required to make up the difference plus an additional 30%. In addition, that country will be suspended from making transfers under an emissions trading program.

Base Year:

The choice of the 1990 main base year remains in Kyoto, as it does in the original Framework Convention. The desire to move to historical emissions was rejected on the basis that good data was not available prior to 1990. The 1990 base year also favoured several powerful interests including the UK, Germany and Russia. This is because the UK and Germany had high CO₂ emissions in 1990. In the UK following 1990, emissions had declined because of a switch from coal to gas ("dash for gas"), which has lower emissions than coal. This was due to the UK's privatization of coal mining and its switch to natural gas supported by North Sea reserves. Germany benefitted from the 1990 base year because of its reunification between West and East Germany. East Germany's emissions fell dramatically following the collapse of East German industry after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Germany could therefore take credit for the resultant decline in emissions

Parties to UNFCCC are classified as:

§ Annex I countries – industrialized countries and economies in transition

§ Annex II countries – developed countries which pay for costs of developing countries

§ Developing countries.

Annex I countries which have ratified the Protocol have committed to reduce their emission levels of greenhouse gasses to targets that are mainly set below their 1990 levels. They may do this by allocating reduced annual allowances to the major operators within their borders. These operators can only exceed their allocations if they buy emission allowances, or offset their excesses through a mechanism that is agreed by all the parties to UNFCCC.

Annex II countries are a sub-group of the Annex I countries. They comprise the OECD members, excluding those that were economies in transition in 1992.

Developing countries are not required to reduce emission levels unless developed countries supply enough funding and technology. Setting no immediate restrictions under UNFCCC serves three purposes:

§ it avoids restrictions on their development, because emissions are strongly linked to industrial capacity

§ they can sell emissions credits to nations whose operators have difficulty meeting their emissions targets

§ they get money and technologies for low-carbon investments from Annex II countries.