Climate Change Policy: The Atmospheric Concentration Of Greenhouse Gas

CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY Name Institution 1. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) informally referred to as the earth summit was a legally non binding treaty designed for the sole objective of stabilizing the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gas (GHG) and to prevent further human interference with the climatic system. It was ready for signatures on 9th May 1922 and entered into force on 21st march 1994. UNFCCC has 194 parties as of May 2011. 2. The main obstacle to the treaty was that it was not legally binding. 3. Parties to UNFCCC are categorized into; annex I, annex II and non annex I countries. Annex I are countries considered industrialized or ones with economies in transition. There are 41 members in this group. Annex II is a sub group of annex I and comprise of developed countries. Currently there are 23 parties in this group. The non annex I parties are countries that are developing. The annex I countries have undertaken the responsibility of reducing their GHG emission levels to various targets while annex II countries have to meet the costs for developing countries. Non annex I countries are not bound to emission reduction targets unless annex II countries provide adequate funding and technology. 4. There were no immediate restrictions placed on non annex I countries since the UN did not want to hamper their development. The framers of the treaty also intended for the developing countries to focus in low- carbon investments aided by finances and technology from annex II countries. The new commodity, carbon units, could be sold to nations that were having difficulties in meeting their reduction targets. 5. The Kyoto protocol is an international agreement that builds on the UNFCCC and commits its parties to setting emission reduction targets that are internationally acceptable and binding. The protocol, supported by scientific evidence, proved that indeed there was global warming and that human manufactured CO2 is to blame CITATION Shy19 \l 1033 (Shyam Singh Yadav,Robert J Redden, Jerry L Hatfield, 2019). 6. The adoption of the agreement was in Kyoto Japan on 11th Dec 1997 but it entered into force on the 16th Feb 2005. Under the protocol, a heavier burden was placed on annex II countries. This was in recognition of their culpability under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” that they bore the most responsibility for the immediate sky-high level of GHG emissions. Carbon units are emission permits that allow parties to emit one ton of CO2. These units (credits) were distributed by the UN to industrialized countries which effectively set up the limit level of emission. This limit is equates the aggregate amount of CO2 they are allowed to emit which should be less than the expected emission. 8. Carbon credit is the surplus carbon units that indicate a healthy emission reduction output by a country CITATION car12 \l 1033 (carbon Control, 2012). 7. Emission trading is a scheme that allows countries to trade on surplus carbon units CITATION UNF05 \l 1033 (UNFCCC, 2005). A country that has managed to reduce its emission to acceptable limits can trade its allocated carbon units with another that has failed to meet its reduction target and need additional units. Tra...