KYOTO

TREAT

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WHAT IS THE KYOTO TREATY?The Kyoto Treaty commits industrialised nations to reducing emissions of greenhouse

gases, principally Carbon Dioxide, by around 5.2% below their 1990 levels over the next decade.

Drawn up in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, the agreement needs to be ratified by countries who were responsible for at least 55% of the world's carbon emissions in 1990 to come into force.

The agreement was dealt a severe blow in March 2001 when President George W Bush announced that the United States would never sign it.

A scaled-down version was drawn up four months later and finalised at climate talks in Bonn in Germany in 2002. The treaty now only needs Russian ratification to come into force.

If and when the revised treaty takes effect in 2008, it will require all signatories, including 39 industrialised countries, to achieve different emission reduction targets.

With that aim, it will provide a complex system which will allow some countries to buy emission credits from others.

For instance, a country in western Europe might decide to buy rights or credits to emit carbon from one in eastern Europe which could not afford the fuel that would emit the carbon in the first place.

As of November 2007, 175 parties have ratified the protocol. Of these, 36 developed countries are required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the levels specified for each of them in the treaty .

Brazil, China and India have no obligation beyond monitoring and reporting emissions.

Non-developed countries will be rewarded by developed countries with various incentives. Countries failing to abide by the agreement are supposed to supply the most incentives to non-developed countries.

WHAT CONSEQUENCES FOR COUNTRIES IF THE KYOTO PROTOCOL IS NOT FOLLOWED?

THE PRINCILPALS COUNTRIES PARTICIPETED OF KYOTO PROTOCOL

Map of the Kyoto Protocol in 2005.

Legend:

. Green: Countries that have ratified the protocol.

. Yellow: Countries that have ratified it but have not yet completed the protocol.

. Red: Countries that have not ratified the protocol.

. Gray: Countries that have not taken any position on the protocol.

KYOTO TREATY 2012

As countries sit down to negotiate the future of Kyoto Protocol, India not only wants a fair share of the remaining carbon space in the next four decades for its development but also want the rich nations to accept their ''historical responsibility'' in polluting the earth and undertake stringent emission cuts.