Kyoto Protocol and Beyond: “Whither the Targets?"

International Council for Capital Formation
November, 2002
By Margo Thorning

(PDF)

More stringent greenhouse gas emissions targets are being proposed for the years after the Kyoto Protocol’s first compliance period (2008–2012). For example, on October 17, 2002, the Council of Environment Ministers of the EU Member States stated that “...global efforts should be guided by a long-term objective of a global temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels and a stabilization of CO2 concentrations below 550 ppm.

This is likely to require a global reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases by 70 percent compared to 1990, as identified by the IPCC.” Based on the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change data, in order to put the world on that trajectory developed country net emissions must fall to zero by 2050 in order to allow developing countries to use energy and continue to grow.

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