Kyoto Protocol
Kyoto Protocol
An example of international cooperation in climate change. A global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Kyoto, Japan, 1977
Required countries to cut emissions by 5% by 2012
At least 55 countries had to agree, only 35 agreed (USA, China and India did not agree)
Many LIC's disagreed as they didn't want to miss out on the chance of modernisation
CDM
Clean Development Mechanism
' Carbon credits' can be bought and sold
Carbon cutting measures earns carbon credits, credits sold to countries that haven't reached their requirements
Forests are carbon sinks, absorb CO2
Others
Paris Agreement - Trump backing out
Bhutan - carbon sink
Maldives - sinking due to sea levels rising
Maldives
Rising sea levels – invest heavily in coastal defences or retreat from the most vulnerable stretches of coast, plan for relocation of displaced people and economic activities, build new cities in inland locations
More hazards – improve ability to predict them and invest in effective hazard preparation and mitigation/adjustment
Ecosystem changing and economic opportunities – abandon areas which are too difficult to continue cultivating, invest in opening up new land for farming, increase search for resources in areas exposed by melted ice
Health and well being – improve the medical treatment of diseases likely to spread as a result of climate change
Conflict – defuse food and water insecurity by international cooperation aimed at achieving a fairer distribution of both commodities
Ice caps melt, rising sea levels and floods due to global warming, Maldives has low land, at risk of sinking
Alternatives to fossil fuels - wind farms, tidal barrages, solar panels, hydroelectric power, and nuclear (hard to dispose)