Kyoto Accord

Environmentalism! Has rapidly spread throughout the world, with terms like global warming and greenhouse gas emissions becoming part of our everyday vocabulary. Finally, the world has caught up with environmental issues. The Kyoto Protocol, which was ratified in Kyoto, Japan in 1997, has become a major global issue. There are different views of Kyoto, mainly due to lack of knowledge regarding how people perceive how it would affect their day-to-day lives, and how such a change could have such a significant impact on the environment. People feel that Kyoto is unreachable, unsustainable and as good of a gesture it is to solve global issues, the feel it is unrealistic. They also feel that due to there being no restriction on developing nations like India and China, it is unfair towards developed nations. China is expected to exceed the United States in emissions released into the environment by the year 2009. (Levent) These people are misguided in their ways, as they do not know that Kyoto is reachable, and can be successful if it is adopted by all nations. Kyoto will successful because there are many alternatives, it is driven by fear, and it provides an even playing field which will provide economic stability.

The Kyoto Accord has many outlined processes which aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Kyoto allows countries to use different mechanisms such as clean development, joint implementation, and emission trading. The clean development mechanism allows countries to exceed their emission regulation in the present as long as they dedicate themselves to lowering the emissions in the future. Things like solar panels to provide energy and more efficient boilers would be an effective tool. Countries also have to devote some of their finances toward planting trees. This will help lower emissions as trees thrive on carbon dioxide. The protocol is aware that having a long term goal to reduce emissions might involve an increase right now. Britain has implemented a new plan to make approximately 20% of their power hydro and solar driven. Britain however has also developed short term goals to reducing emissions such as charging a fee to drive SUV’s. Britain feels that with the advancement in technology and through the introduction of more fuel efficient hybrid cars that are more supportive towards the environment, people should only be driving hybrid vehicles and those who don’t will face a fee for everyday that their vehicle is on the road. (“Provisional”) Joint implementation allows the entire world to use collectivism to stop the difficult task of global warming. Joint Implementation is another tool which works toward the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, joint implementation allows the countries who haven’t yet developed ‘sinks’ or other forms of emission reduction to use other countries ‘sinks.’ It allows countries that have met their requirements to give up some of their emission credits to other countries that may need it. Another way of transferring emission credits is through Emission Trading. Through this, countries that met their requirements and have emission credits to spare can sell or trade them to other countries for something of values to them, therefore both countries get something they need out of the trade. For example, the oil rich province of Alberta which increases Canada’s overall emissions can give up some of that oil to countries such as Britain who would have met their requirement to give up some of their emission credits for a profit of the oil. They could also be given a share of ownership of the oil sector for a certain period of time and would have to give up a certain number of emissions credits each year. Having these different ways to reduce and maintain greenhouse gas emissions gives countries more lay away thus, promoting the Kyoto Protocol. Having there various ways also gives countries a way of thinking collectively, which shows that when working as a team they can eliminate greenhouse gas emissions easily and more effectively.

Fear, coercion, and fright, whatever you want to call it, fear is one of the leading forces in society as people are afraid not to be normal. For example, when a high school has a uniform or a specific dress code and it is not respected by a student, that student would be considered an outsider and most likely he or she would be expelled. High school can be used to explain a country’s actions and decisions such as Canada and the United States. Sure Canada is considered a sovereign nation and will do what is in its best interest however they always look towards their neighbor to the south. This is due to the amount of globalization there is in the world. Countries have major interdependence on each other. Canada’s largest trading partner is the United States and they must support the United States to maintain economic stability. The fear of putting trade tariffs and sanctions on a specific country’s resources