MOSCOW, December 16 (Itar-Tass) —— The Kyoto Protocol has lost its effectiveness, spokesman of Russia’s Foreign Ministry Alexander Lukashevich said on Friday commenting on Canada’s decision to leave the international mechanism.
“It is another example proving that the Kyoto Protocol, which was designed back in 1997, has lost its effectiveness in the context of the social and economic situation of the 21st century,” he said, “as it does not provide an adequate participation in collective effort to suspend the anthropogenic influence on the Earth’s climate of all countries.”
Lukashevich added that “the right to leave /the Kyoto Protocol/ is a sovereign right of every country.”
According to the charter procedures, Canada will retain its membership in the Kyoto Protocol for another year.
The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialised countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions .These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012.
The major distinction between the Protocol and the Convention is that while the Convention encouraged industrialised countries to stabilize GHG emissions, the Protocol commits them to do so.
Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, the Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities.”
The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. The detailed rules for the implementation of the Protocol were adopted at COP 7 in Marrakesh in 2001, and are called the “Marrakesh Accords.”