Climate Change: the Kyoto Protocol and the deforestation problem.

Abstract

Climate change is one of the top priorities of our generation. The sustainability of the present economic order is questioned by the negative impact that the industrialised society has generated from the XVII century onward. My work is motivated by the consideration that the awareness on how important and irreparable the consequences of climate change are is still insufficient, as well as the answers that the international community has provided. Greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere are constantly growing, and global temperature has already increased by 1° C above pre-industrial levels, with an expectation to grow from 3.7 °C to 4.8 °C within the century under a business-as-usual path, with catastrophic consequences. The first global response to the challenges of climate change came with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the non-binding agreement that was signed on the issue in 1992, and with its Kyoto Protocol in 1997. My work, through the analysis of the Protocol and of its evolution hitherto, has the objective of highlighting the weaknesses and the strengths of the international process on climate change action, with a particular focus on the deforestation problem, and to offer, more than an occasion to reflect, a motivation to act. Drawing data from the IPCC, the World Bank, and the UNFCCC documentations, and from the rich climate change literature and journals, what emerges overall is the inadequacy of the “Kyoto process” to provide the necessary results on global GHG reduction. Different visions and priorities between developed and developing countries have slowed the UNFCCC negotiations, as well as its effectiveness. It was known from the start that the implementation of the Protocol was only a first step in climate change mitigation, but progresses have missed the expectations of stakeholders and civil society. Moreover, chances to enhance forests as GHG removal sinks, in particular through the REDD+ process, have been behindhand. The new Paris Agreement of December 2015 is virtually the last occasion to realise a globally coordinated effort to fight climate change, and its provisions on mitigation and adaptation to climate change have to be strengthened and embraced by all the UNFCCC’s member States to have a chance of reducing emissions. Currently, considerable gap exists between national and international purposes and actions to reduce emissions and the actual level required to keep average global temperatures rising no more than 2° C above their pre-industrial level, above which science shows that there is a much higher risk of very serious climate impacts. Responding to the climate threat requires strong government action at all levels, in a complex process that should include close cooperation between governments, the private sector, NGOs, and civil society. This challenge implies the construction of a new paradigm, which starts from the bottom, from the principles of equity, cooperation and awareness.