Kyoto second commitment period
The Herald reports:
Prime Minister John Key has defended the Government’s decision not to sign on for the second stage of the Kyoto Protocol, saying the country is playing its part in combating climate change.
The climate change treaty’s first commitment period expires at the end of the year and New Zealand expects to slightly exceed its target.
The treaty aims to curb international greenhouse gas emissions through binding national commitments but some countries have questioned its effectiveness.
Oh Kyoto is almost totally ineffective. The first commitment period excluded the major emitters and the second period would cover at best 15% of total emissions.
I support an international agreement to reduce emissions, but any agreement without China, India and the United States is worthless.
Here;s what the impact of Kyoto on global temperatures would be:
The first scenario looked at what would happen if, after the protocol expires, the Annex B countries continued to abide by Kyoto’s limits but did not make any new commitments to further cut emissions for the rest of the century.
This “constant compliance” scenario would shave 0.11 to 0.21 degrees Celsius (0.20–0.38 degrees Fahrenheit) off global average temperatures by 2100. Stated another way, instead of heating up by 2.5°C (4.5°F), a midpoint in the range of projections of global warming, Earth would warm approximately 6% less.
So after 100 years the increase in global temperatures may be 0.2 degrees less. It’s ridiculous.
Again, any credible agreement needs the big emitters in there, The top 10 emitters are:
- China 16.4%
- US 15.7%
- Brazil 6.5%
- Indonesia 4.6%
- Russia 4.6%
- India 4.3%
- Japan 3.2%
- Germany 2.3%
- Canada 1.9%
- UK 1.6%
Now the only countries in that top 10 who are in Kyoto are Japan, Germany and the UK. NZ by the way is at 0.2%.