The Rise and Fall of the Kyoto Protocol
Interesting read. It is the Phd thesis of a woman who got her Phd while serving as a member of the European Parliament from Finland.
https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/136507/Therisea.pdf?sequence=1
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• During climate actions global emissions have increased forcefully, especially in developing countries. The Kyoto Protocol has not been able to intervene in this development. In the case of industrialized countries, no significant differences can be traced between countries that have taken up Kyoto obligations and those that have not. The ratifiers of the Kyoto Protocol have not succeeded significantly better, especially if also consumption is taken into account. The carbon-intensity (CO2 per GDP unit) of human kind has not decreased.
• Climate change became the next grand narrative after the Cold War dominating the beginning of the first decade of the 21st century. It bypassed many concrete and severe problems and a record amount of attention and resources were sacrificed to it. During this hype, emissions increased both relatively and absolutely. Environmental thinking took some steps backwards while climate change was cannibalizing other problems. Still, the main environmental problems are caused by overpopulation, poorly planned land-use and over-exploitation of natural resources.
• Climate change has turned out to be a so-called wicked problem, which is hard to define, hard to solve, and whose solving does not have a clear end point and whose resolution attempts generate additional problems. Climate problem is a problem of decision-making.
• The Kyoto Protocol is not suitable for the solution to a wicked problem, because it is a copy of other agreements for tame and clearly definable problems. Thus, Kyoto has, as a matter of fact, worsened the situation as demonstrated by the increase in emissions. EU climate action cannot be considered successful, neither from the viewpoint of emissions reduction nor the angle of decision-making.
• The problem of EU climate policy is the abundance of overlapping control mechanisms. As individual cures they may work, but when used in an overlapping fashion they outlaw one another. Different correcting measures to fix these overlaps have created an unpredictable and insecure investing environment for the European industry.
• Emissions trading has been the most important EU climate policy instrument. In principle, it could offer a more cost-effective mechanism to reduce emissions.Applied by the EU, it has not led to the reduction of consumption based CO2 emissions nor has it been able to contribute to the creation of a functioning carbon market. Because of overlapping legislation emissions trading has not been granted the peaceful operational environment it needs. Limited to Europe it has created additional costs for us, which the EU’s competitors do not have.
• The success of climate actions has also been disturbed by a massive and unpredictable global change. In 1997–2002, nobody guessed that China, India and partly South America’s economic growth will absorb industrial production so forcefully out of Europe and the US. The emission share of Kyoto countries was marginalised from 63% at the entry into force to 13–14% under Kyoto II.
• Climate policy should be split into pieces that are promoted decisively. Poverty, energy shortages ,loss of biodiversity, desertification or the problems of developing countries cannot be reduced to a mere climate problem. These issues have to be dealt with as such because they are concrete problems.
• Scientific uncertainty is an acceptable fact of life, and the discussion on the causes of climate change will continue. We will never reach a stage in which research should end and politics should start based on this. Both have to be advanced simultaneously, also while uncertainty reigns. This poses a challenge to politics: it has to be so robust, sturdy or grounded in certainty and focused on relevant issues, that it does not have to be regretted significantly when scientific truths change.
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