The Kyoto Protocol is part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which is aimed at fighting global warming.
The UNFCCC is e international environmental treaty with the goal of achieving the “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”
The Kyoto Protocol was first agreed on 11 December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, and it became a formal part of the treaty on 16 February 2005. Currently, 191 members of the United Nations have signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
Under the Protocol, 37 of the major industrialised nations have agreed to reducing four main greenhouse gases by 5.2% from the 1990 levels. They have committed to reducing:
- carbon dioxide
- methane
- nitrous oxide
- sulphur hexafluoride
They will also reduce two further groups of gases (hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons) that are produced by the 4 main gases. 
These 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.
The Kyoto Protocol does allow for several “flexible mechanisms”, such as emissions trading, the clean development mechanism (CDM) and joint implementation.
A joint implementation will allow a country to offset some of its reduction targets by investing in a greenhouse gas reduction project in another country. For example, a joint implementation project might involve replacing a coal-fired power station with a combined heat and power system,
Under the Kyoto Protocol each of the 37 countries must provide an annual report of inventories of all human produced greenhouse gas emissions. They must also identify a national authority which is responsible for maintaining these inventories.
It is significant that some of the largest producers of greenhouse gases have not ratified the Kyoto Protocol the most notable being the USA and China.
So, in February 2007 the heads of government from major greenhouse gas producers, including the USA, China and India, agreed a non-binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol known as the Washington Declaration. This declaration outlined a global cap-and-trade system that would include both industrialised and developing nations.
This declaration was extended at the 2007 meeting of the G8 nations. Here it was agreed that the G8 nations would “aim to at least halve global CO2 emissions by 2050″ and the details would be agreed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Whilst the Kyoto Protocol has not led to the hoped for reductions in greenhouse gases it has formed the basis for ongoing discussions on such reductions.
