Can the Kyoto Protocol Save the Earth's Atmosphere?

Next month, diplomats from nearly 200 countries will gather to negotiate a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, signaling the growing concern to create a comprehensive, global strategy for environmental management. This is a chance for major players, like the United States and China, to look past their political and economic differences and concentrate on implementing better environmental practices for the benefit of the whole world. It is a chance for countries that signed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to rededicate their efforts to capping emissions instead of only agreeing to the standards on paper. The current agreement has failed to both sign on major powers and enforce its regulations. Thus, this time the Kyoto Protocol must be improved to reach an enforceable, international consensus on environmental management to achieve success on capping emissions and avoid negative consequences for the global environment, global health, and the global economy.

This paper will seek to show how environmental management has risen from a domestic issue to a global issue and why a timely, global solution is needed to combat increasing environmental problems. Then, it will look specifically at greenhouse gas emissions as one of the major problems that bind countries together in search for a solution. Finally, it will assess the success of the Kyoto Protocol as a united response to decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

Environmental management has not always been the focus of United Nations policy making, and it has only relatively recently motivated countless NGOs to lobby against detrimental environmental practices. However, with the increase of environmental incidences have made the world aware environmental problems affect more than just select regions; environmental management has become a global concern. For example, winds that carry toxic yellow dust originate in China but spread to Japan, Korea, and the western United States, causing acid rain and air pollution (Woo 2009). Carbon dioxide emissions from heavy traffic in New York accumulate in the atmosphere and contribute to the local smog but also to the effects of global warming. Ocean dumping spreads toxic wastes across seas and accumulates in marine wildlife that is harvested for consumption. The transshipment of hazardous resources can cause a costly disaster for coastal inhabitants through an oil spill. Industries in developing countries burn cheap coal to fuel factories and at the same time emit carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid into the atmosphere and without proper disposal methods, dump chemicals into the local water supply. These problems occur on a global scale because national leaders of tend not to worry about the effects their actions will have on their neighbors when formulating environmental policies.

This problem was first identified by Garret Hardin in 1968 as the tragedy of the commons. Hardin referred to an open pasture in which herdsmen keep their cattle, and the herdsmen eventually ruin the pasture as each one continually adds cattle to his herd to get ahead of the others (Hardin 1968, 1244). In this case, the pasture is the world's air and water supplies, and each country, in an effort to beat out the competition, is trying to bolster its GDP by rapid industrialization and resource exploitation and then disposing of the subsequent waste in the most convenient way by polluting the air and water. If every nation's growth remains unchecked, the world's water and air supplies will suffer the same fate as Hardin's pasture. Thus, the system of individual policy making needs to be thrown out because all the environmental incidences listed previously originated out of local economic concern but ended up having big environmental consequences for other countries (Susskind 2008). National governments find themselves unable to react when their country's air quality and water supply are being threatened by foreign pollutants because their set of laws cannot stop their neighbor from polluting, and it is unprecedented to take action against another country because of environmental concerns. Subsequently, national environmental regulations decrease in their importance in the face of trans-boundary pollutants. Instead, a new set of policies is needed to incorporate environmental management into a global strategy.

One of the biggest threats to the global commons that needs to be addressed is greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases enter the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides, and chlorofluorocarbons from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and oil), deforestation and the agricultural sector (Levi 2009). In the grand scheme, greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere and warm the Earth, so its inhabitants do not freeze. However, if too many greenhouse gases are emitted into the atmosphere, the Earth's temperature will continue to rise. That is precisely what is happening on Earth right now, as the phenomenon known as global warming. Just in the short-run alone, the negative effects of too many greenhouse gases in the air are evident. Citizens of large cities can see the immediate effects of greenhouse gases as they pollute the air and create smog. Prolonged exposure to dirty air can worsen lung-related diseases, such as asthma and emphysema, and can even cause fatal respiratory diseases in healthy people. As global warming occurs, the effects of too many greenhouse gases will be more pronounced and more global in scope. Rising temperatures are melting the polar ice caps, and as the ice caps melt, sea levels will rise and create disaster for coastal cities and island nations. Rising temperatures will also affect seasonal changes by altering precipitation patterns and ecological systems. The climate will drastically change as some regions experience more rain than usual while other regions receive less rain. This change will lead to drought, flooding, and reduction of the biodiversity of fragile ecosystems. International bodies must make a concerted effort to deeply cut emissions in coming decades if the world is to control the risks of dangerous climate change.

One effort that has already been made to control climate change is the Kyoto Protocol. It is the first international agreement intended to stabilize greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere by promoting more sustainable development ("Kyoto on Course" 2008). 38 countries have signed the agreement, binding them to specific cuts in greenhouse gas pollution (Levi 2009). The Protocol's biggest success is that the world is currently on track to meet emission targets set by it ("Kyoto on Course" 2008). However, it has numerous problems that threaten to detract from its initial success. First, many countries have failed to meet their specific emission standards because the United Nations has not made penalties explicit for failing to meet the Protocol's obligations (Susskind 2008). The UN body governing the Protocol does not have adequate resources to enable or ensure treaty compliance. It is up to each country to fund green-technology use in industries and in homes, but the countries signed the Protocol knowing what expected of them. Even though, when countries fail to meet their responsibilities, they are not penalized, financially or otherwise, because resources do not exist to fervently seek out and punish noncompliance. The second problem with the Kyoto Protocol is that many countries have yet to agree to its policies and be held to the same standard as the rest of the world. The world's major powers have yet to take the initiative and cut their greenhouse gas emissions to sustainable levels. The United States has not ratified the Protocol, citing the unwillingness of larger, industrializing countries to accept the same targets and timetables that the US would be responsible for, but China and India feel that it is unfair that be held to the same standards as developed countries because their industrial sectors have not been given the same time to grow as those of the United States and Europe. The United States, China, and India need to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol if it hopes to continue significantly combating climate change, so how can the Protocol be reformed to encompass more of the globe in its efforts and have a greater effect on stabilizing and reducing greenhouse gas emissions?

First, a plan to better enforce the Protocol needs to be developed. Currently, enforcement is practically non-existent. Even if every country was to miraculously agree to the binding emission caps, the Kyoto Protocol would still not guarantee success because it has few options for enforcing commitments to slash emissions (Levi 2009). A policy needs to be formulated to provide both political and economic incentives to motivate countries to abide by their promise and deal out financial penalties to those countries who decide not to adopt national standards consistent with Kyoto requirements. In addition to creating an enforcement strategy, developed and developing countries need to come to the negotiating table and cooperate to reach agreements that will be more satisfying to all parties (Susskind 2008). Developed countries need to recognize that developing nations simply do not have the resources to implement environmentally-friendly technologies in their factories and electricity plants, so in order to get developing nations to agree to certain standards, developed countries must offer the necessary technology and funding. When developing nations, such as China and India, agree to certain terms, developed nations, like the United States, are more likely to sign on to the Protocol.

In conclusion, the Kyoto Protocol will only be able to fully succeed if all countries can agree to accept a common goal, so as the leaders from almost 200 countries gather next month in Copenhagen, it is at this lofty goal they must aim. They must be ready to negotiate giving developing countries more time and assistance than developed countries (Susskind 2008). They must also be able to agree to come back to the table to make sure that developed countries are abiding specific emission cuts and providing assistance to poorer nations who are developing their own emission-cutting policies (Levi 2009). If the Kyoto Protocol fails to produce these results, it will become viewed as an unreliable environmental management policy that cannot bind countries together and enforce its standards upon them. Unreliable environmental management policies do little to stand in the way of environmental detriment and its future problems for global health and the global economy.

Works Cited

Hardin, Garret. "The Tragedy of the Commons." Science 162 (1968): 1243-1248.

"Kyoto on Course." New Scientist 200.2683 (2008): 7. http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=AONE&userGroupName=unc_main.

Levi, Michael A. "Copenhagen's inconvenient truth: how to salvage the climate conference." Foreign Affairs 88.5 (2009): 92+. http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=AONE&userGroupName=unc_main.

Susskind, Lawrence. "Strengthening the global environmental treaty system: despite the huge media attention environmental treaties receive, the system of making and implementing them is barely functioning." Issues in Science and Technology 25.1 (2008): 60+. http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=AONE&userGroupName=unc_main.

Woo, Wing Thye. "The challenges of governance structure, trade disputes and natural environment to China's growth. (Report)." Comparative Economic Studies 49.4 (Dec 2007): 572(31). Academic OneFile. Gale. UNC Chapel Hill. 9 Nov. 2009
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