Talk:Kyoto Protocol/Archive 7

The Sucess or Failure of the Kyoto Protocol
The article is missing the most important section, a table showing by country who met their commitments and who did not.

The assessment of which commitments have been met will not be made until after the end first commitment period, i.e. post-2012. So the table will have until then.David (talk) 14:33, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Article probation
Please note that, by a decision of the Wikipedia community, this article and others relating to climate change (broadly construed) has been placed under article probation. Editors making disruptive edits may be blocked temporarily from editing the encyclopedia, or subject to other administrative remedies, according to standards that may be higher than elsewhere on Wikipedia. Please see General sanctions/Climate change probation for full information and to review the decision. -- ChrisO (talk) 15:58, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

"Background" section rewrite
I've rewritten the "background section". It is perhaps a necessary section, but given the excessive length of the article, it could be trimmed at a later date. Certainly the content is adequately covered in other articles.

On the basis of improving the article, while retaining the section, I've made some changes. First of all, I've put references in to support various statements. I've also rewritten these statements so that they are consistent with the sources I've used. I was not happy with this bit of the previous revision:

The prevailing international scientific opinion on climate change is that human activities resulted in substantial global warming from the mid-20th century, and that continued growth in greenhouse gas concentrations caused by human-induced emissions would generate high risks of dangerous climate change.

The part in bold is a subjective value judgement. This point is supported in the source I've used, and has also been recognized by the IPCC (see the Third Assessment Synthesis report). I've replaced this with something more suitable. I've replaced the "predictions" with the IPCC "projections". "Projections" and "predictions" are different. It might seem like a trivial point, but the IPCC does not say that the SRES projections are predictions. So I've changed this. Enescot (talk) 07:37, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

New sections on "Economics" and "Views on the Protocol"
I've written a new section on economics. It's my first attempt to have better coverage in the article on the economics of the Kyoto Protocol. I've scrapped the sections on "Support", "criticism", and "cost-benefit analysis". Some of this content has been moved, other bits have been deleted. The new section I've created for this is called "Views on the Protocol". My new arrangement allows the competing arguments of supporters and critics to be contained in the same section, which I think is better.

I've deleted a substantial portion of the old section on cost-benefit analysis. Most of the issues in the section are now dealt with in the economics section. I didn't think that mention of the Copenhagen Consensus was necessary. My new revision makes it clear that Nordhaus's study is a common finding, thus there is no need to repeatedly cite references saying the same thing. Also, what's the point in mentioning something but not explaining why you get that particular result?

I deleted the thing on discount rates. This is indirectly dealt with in the new section where I say that CBA is driven principally by low marginal damage estimates. In my opinion, the section was of reasonable quality but it wasn't particularly helpful or easy to understand. Also the article is very long and I think it can safely be dropped.

I've removed some of the papers from the further reading section. These are two papers by Kogan:



The further reading list was too long, and in my view, one paper per author is sufficient. I've left reference to Kogan (2002). Another change I've made is to group the economic papers into their own section. Enescot (talk) 13:44, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Slim down of government action and other changes
I've extensively shortened this article down, mostly from the "current positions of governments" section. The information has been moved to the new article Kyoto Protocol and government action. I've also made some changes to other sections.

Objectives
Previous revision:

''(i) The target agreed upon was an average reduction of 5.2% from 1990 levels by the year 2012. (ii) '''Contrary to popular belief, the Protocol will NOT expire in 2012. (iii) In 2012, Annex I countries must have fulfilled their obligations of reduction of greenhouse gases emissions established for the first commitment period (2008–2012) (see Annex B of the Protocol).'

Sentence (ii) is not encyclopedic. No reference is cited, and the aggressive capitalization of "NOT" is inappropriate. I also have trouble with the tone: why do you need to set up a defense for an argument (that the Protocol will expire in 2012) that hasn't been made? This isn't an FAQ page.

Sentence (iii) says that countries "must have fulfilled" their targets etc. I don't think this is appropriate. The treaty may say that they "must" have fulfilled their commitments, but that doesn't mean that they will. My changes are below:

''(i) The target agreed upon was an average reduction of 5.2% from 1990 levels by the year 2012. (II) According to the treaty, in 2012, Annex I countries must have fulfilled their obligations of reduction of greenhouse gases emissions established for the first commitment period (2008–2012) (see Annex B of the Protocol).''

I've deleted sentence (ii) since a citation wasn't provided. Sentence (II) is a minor alteration of sentence (iii).

Current positions of governments
This section was way too long. The article was 120 KB, which is four times the suggested Wikipedia article size. Therefore I've created a new article and moved all of the content previously contained in this section to this new article. I've summarized the existing section.

For the section on Pakistan, I think that some bits are written in an inappropriate tone:

''(i) It was expected that the Protocol would help Pakistan lower dependence on fossil fuels through renewable energy projects. (ii)'''Although Pakistan was not a big polluter, it was a victim. (iii) Global warming had led to 'freak weather' in the country with record-breaking cold and heat, and droughts and floods.'

Sentence (ii) is not written in an objective, scientific way, e.g., see the IPCC reports. The word "victim" is rather emotional. Also, saying that "it was a victim" suggests 100% certainty over attribution of human-induced effects causing impacts in the region. This is not scientifically valid. Similarily, sentence (iii) says that:

Global warming had led to 'freak weather [...]

Again, the word "had" suggests 100% certainty, which has no scientific validity.

Support
Quote:

''Advocates of the Kyoto Protocol state that reducing these emissions is crucially important, as carbon dioxide is believed to be causing the Earth's atmosphere to heat up. This is supported by attribution analysis.''

"Advocates" is not an appropriate word to use. This is not a legal case. "Supporters" is probably better. "Believed" is also a poor choice of word. What is the basis for this belief? Who believes this? The use of the word "believe" can be avoided by simply specifying who has this particular belief. The fact that the person cited believes that the statement they are making is true is surely obvious from the fact that they are making that particular statement.

Criticism
Several problems with this section:

Some environmental economists have been critical of the Kyoto Protocol.[89][90][91] Many see the costs of the Kyoto Protocol as outweighing the benefits

Who is "many", and how many is many? This should be specified. "Many" suggests that a majority of environmental economists believe this view. Unless a source specifically uses this word, I suggest that it is changed to "some." By the way, the cited source is dead.

This particular section already has a tag above it:

(a) Climate scientist James E. Hansen, in his recent book (Storms of my Grandchildren) and in an open letter to President Obama, has criticized the Kyoto Protocol for promoting an inefficient “cap and trade” system.[94]

''(b)   "They are selling indulgences there"..."The developed nations want to continue basically business as usual so they are expected to purchase indulgences to give some small amount of money to developing countries. They do that in the form of offsets and adaptation funds." [95] "So, for example, in the Kyoto Protocol, that was very ineffective. Even the countries that took on supposedly the strongest requirements, like Japan for example—if you look at its actual emissions, its actual fossil fuel use, you see that their CO2 emissions actually increased even though they were supposed to decrease. Because their coal use increased and they used offsets to meet their objective. Offsets don’t help significantly. That’s why the approach that Copenhagen is using to specify goals for emission reductions and then to allow offsets to accomplish much of that reduction is really a fake. And that has to be exposed. Otherwise, just like in the Kyoto Protocol, we’ll realize 10 years later, oops, it really didn’t do much." [96]''

(c) Hansen has proposed as an alternative a carbon tax involving a dividend to citizens inversely proportional[improper synthesis?] to their carbon footprint.[97][98]

Paragraph (a):

(a) Climate scientist James E. Hansen, in his recent book (Storms of my Grandchildren) and in an open letter to President Obama, has criticized the Kyoto Protocol for promoting an inefficient “cap and trade” system.[94]

I don't think this is noteworthy. Hansen has not written a paper criticizing the Protocol, this is a letter and book which represents his own views. Why should his views be cited ahead of other influential people living in the US, or for that matter, important people living all over the world? And three paragraphs?

There's no doubt that the Protocol has been criticized as being "inefficient". Hansen is not the best source to use when it comes to making this point. Nordhaus's work (2001) is cited in the IPCC report, and he is an expert in this area. Therefore, I've replaced the sentences based on Hansen's views on inefficiency with:

''Nordhaus (2001) drew attention to the inefficiencies of the Kyoto Protocol's flexibility mechanisms. Nordhaus explained that meeting the emission reduction commitments specified in the Bonn-Marakesh Accord, using the quantity-type instruments as defined in the Protocol, would be less efficient compared to a situation where price-type instruments were used, e.g., a harmonized carbon tax.''

Paragraph (b)

''(b)   "They are selling indulgences there"..."The developed nations want to continue basically business as usual so they are expected to purchase indulgences to give some small amount of money to developing countries. They do that in the form of offsets and adaptation funds." [95] "So, for example, in the Kyoto Protocol, that was very ineffective. Even the countries that took on supposedly the strongest requirements, like Japan for example—if you look at its actual emissions, its actual fossil fuel use, you see that their CO2 emissions actually increased even though they were supposed to decrease. Because their coal use increased and they used offsets to meet their objective. Offsets don’t help significantly. That’s why the approach that Copenhagen is using to specify goals for emission reductions and then to allow offsets to accomplish much of that reduction is really a fake. And that has to be exposed. Otherwise, just like in the Kyoto Protocol, we’ll realize 10 years later, oops, it really didn’t do much." [96]''

My main criticism here is to do with importance. That Hansen gets three paragraphs in this section is totally disproportionate. Since his views over the inefficiency of the Protocol is now adequately dealt with reference to Nordhaus, I've reduced Hansen's contribution to one sentence:

Climate scientist James E. Hansen, in his recent book (Storms of my Grandchildren) and in an open letter to President Obama, has criticized the Kyoto Protocol for being ineffective.

Paragraph (c):

(c) Hansen has proposed as an alternative a carbon tax involving a dividend to citizens inversely proportional[improper synthesis?] to their carbon footprint.[97][98]

Not only only do we have Hansen's criticism of the Protocol, we also have his suggested policy. This article is not, as far as I'm aware, called "James Hansen's views on the Kyoto Protocol". I've deleted sentence (c) and replaced it with:

Nordhaus suggested that given the Protocol's large costs and small benefits, it might be better for it to be redesigned along the lines of a global carbon tax.

If carbon taxes are to be promoted, Nordhaus is a better source to promote them than Hansen.

Nice work. Long overdue. Mrfebruary (talk) 09:45, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Cost-benefit analysis
This section is biased. There should be a proper section detailing the economics of the Kyoto Protocol. CBA should be mentioned as part of this section. CBA is not the only economic assessment of Kyoto. The important concepts of efficiency and equity are not properly explained. These concepts need to be understood in order to understand CBA. The choice of papers selected for the section is arbitrary and biased. I'd have no problem if they were used in an appropriate manner, that is to present a balanced overview of the subject, but they're not. The section also uses inappropriate language, e.g., "Defenders of the Kyoto Protocol [...]". A "defender" of the treaty should be referred to by name, and their argument presented in a neutral fashion.

There is also a synthesis problem in the citation of the Stern Review, which an editor appears to have used as a suggested "defense" of the Protocol. The cost estimate for the Stern Review is, as I understand it, for a stabilization target in the range of 450 to 550 ppm CO2e. I don't see what this has to do with the emission reduction commitments specified in the Kyoto treaty. Enescot (talk) 12:00, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Well done. Mrfebruary (talk) 09:46, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Summarized and deleted several sections. Some restructuring.
I've trimmed down several sections, rewritten the bit on China, and deleted the section on Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. I did this because the article is too long. Also, the section on China was, in my opinion, dreadful. Therefore I've rewritten it.

Emissions trading
This section was too long. I've reduced it in size and moved the old revision to the flexible mechanisms article. I've also renamed the section "flexibility mechanisms". I did this because it mentioned emissions trading along with the CDM and JI.

China
I was very unhappy with this section:

''(i) As of August 27, 2008 China surpassed the United States as the biggest emitter in the world of CO2 from power generation, according to the Center for Global Development.[27] On a per capita basis, however, the emission by the power sector in the U.S. is still nearly four times that in China. The top ten power sector emitters in the world in absolute terms are China, the United States, India, Russia, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, and South Korea. If the 27 member states of the European Union are counted as a single country, the E.U. would rank as the third biggest CO2 polluter, after China and the United States. In per capita terms, emissions from the U.S. power sector are the second highest in the world. The production of electricity in the U.S. produces about 9.5 tons of CO2 per person per year, compared to 2.4 tons per person per year in China, 0.6 in India, and 0.1 in Brazil. The average per capita emission from electricity and heat production in the E.U. is 3.3 tons per year. Only Australia, at greater than 10 tons per year, emits more power-related emissions per person than the U.S does.''

(ii) In March 2008, Canadian economists Jeff Rubin and Benjamin Tal discussed a number of reasons why a carbon tariff against China was likely.[28]


 * China’s GHG emissions have increased by 120% since the beginning of the decade, while U.S. emissions have increased 16% over the same period;
 * China now exceeds the United States as the single largest GHG emitter, and accounts for more than a fifth of global GHG emissions;
 * China relies more heavily on coal-fired power plants, the most GHG-intensive energy source, than do most OECD countries. Between now and 2012, the increase in Chinese coal-based emissions will exceed the entire level of coal-based emissions in the United States.

(iii) In June 2007, China unveiled a 62-page climate change plan and promised to put climate change at the center of its energy policy and insisted that developed countries had an “unshirkable responsibility” to take the lead on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and that the principle of "common but differentiated responsibility", as agreed up in the UNFCCC, should be applied.[29][30]

''(iv) China stated the criticisms of its energy policy were unjust.[31] It is unfair to compare among different countries, since China alone makes up one-fifth of the world's population and the per capita emission in China was low compared to the emission in the industrialized world. Even after one combines the population of the E.U., the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea, China would still outnumber them by a few hundred million. A comparison of yearly emissions also neglects the cumulative amount generated by developed countries. Studies of carbon leakage also suggest that nearly a quarter of China's emissions result from production of goods exported to developed countries.[32]''

None of the paragraphs directly addresses the Chinese participation in Kyoto agreement. All paragraphs are biased interpretations of Chinese energy policy. I've deleted the entire thing and replaced it with information on Chinese participation in the Kyoto Protocol through the CDM. Note that the main article on the Kyoto Protocol and government action still has this revision contained in it.

Paragraph (i)

''As of August 27, 2008 China surpassed the United States as the biggest emitter in the world of CO2 from power generation, according to the Center for Global Development.[27] On a per capita basis, however, the emission by the power sector in the U.S. is still nearly four times that in China. The top ten power sector emitters in the world in absolute terms are China, the United States, India, Russia, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, and South Korea. If the 27 member states of the European Union are counted as a single country, the E.U. would rank as the third biggest CO2 polluter, after China and the United States. In per capita terms, emissions from the U.S. power sector are the second highest in the world. The production of electricity in the U.S. produces about 9.5 tons of CO2 per person per year, compared to 2.4 tons per person per year in China, 0.6 in India, and 0.1 in Brazil. The average per capita emission from electricity and heat production in the E.U. is 3.3 tons per year. Only Australia, at greater than 10 tons per year, emits more power-related emissions per person than the U.S does.''

Nothing in here is directly related Kyoto. The issue of fairness of the Kyoto agreement is already covered in the earlier section "common but differentiated responsibility". I've moved some of the content of this paragraph to the "common but differentiated responsibility" section.

Paragraph (ii)

This is a biased analysis of Chinese energy policy, with no reference to the Kyoto agreement. I say biased because it is based on one analysis. It is particularly biased in the sense that the US and China are, by inference, considered to be the only important countries in relation to the Protocol.

Paragraph (iii)

This does refer to the UNFCCC, but not directly to its Protocol. How does Chinese policy directly relate to the Protocol? This paragraph does not answer this question.

Paragraph (iv)

This is another paragraph that does not directly address anything to do with the Kyoto agreement. Rather, it is a Chinese interpretation of equity issues. To be included, these issues should be directly related to parts of the Kyoto agreement. Another thing is the rather sloppy usage of the term "carbon leakage". Carbon leakage can be interpreted (as is done in the IPCC report) as the spillover effect of emissions reductions in Annex B countries on non-Annex B countries. The article, however, uses the term carbon leakage to refer to attribution of emissions, i.e., attributing emissions by consumption versus production. These are two completely different uses of the term "carbon leakage". Therefore it is necessary to say which one you're referring to.

I should also add that if you are to refer to the latter usage, you should offer a balanced description of equity issues relating to emissions attribution – e.g., sovereign responsibility of governments over their own emissions. It should also be made absolutely clear that emissions attribution is an equity issue. It should not be raised, as the article did, purely as a rhetorical device. To do this is misleading and biased.

Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate
Again, this does not deal directly with anything to do with the Protocol. I don't see how the scheme "complements" the Protocol in any way. I've deleted the section and moved it to the article on the Kyoto Protocol and government action. Enescot (talk) 17:40, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

GHG emissions since 1990 and "See also"
I've deleted the section on GHG emissions since 1990 and the table based on 1992. The table with 1992 as a base year is not directly relevant to this article, which is already overly long. I should also note the bias, perhaps unintentional, of sorting the table according to national totals, rather than national per-capita, emissions.

My replacement for the section is based on a report by the World Bank and a story on the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL, 2009) website. I'm not a great fan of tables, and have summarized the data in prose. My summary is closely based on PBL (2009). I've also trimmed down the "See also" section, which is an excessively long and biased section:

Action on climate change

Deleted Individual and political action on climate change – this is listed in the "global warming and climate change" template.

Agreements

Deleted G8+5 and Superfund. These are not particularly related to the article.

Business

Deleted carbon credit and emissions trading because they are referred to in the article.

Controversies

I've deleted all of these. They are of minority interest, and "controversies" are included as a category in the GW and CC template. It is also rather excessive to have all these "controversies" listed.

Emissions

I've deleted carbon dioxide equivalent because it is referred to in the article. The other articles referred to I've listed as "see also" articles in the section on emissions.

Initiatives

This is an extremely biased list focusing on US conservative interests. The article concerns an international subject, therefore such focus is not justified. I've deleted all of the articles referred to, except the one that is a list of climate change initiatives.

Having deleted all these links, I've removed the sub-section groupings because I don't think they're necessary any more. I've added a link to the politics of global warming. Enescot (talk) 19:59, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Government action
I've rewritten the section on government action. It's now grouped into Annex I and non-Annex I countries. The stuff I've deleted is still all contained in the main article Kyoto Protocol and government action. Enescot (talk) 05:44, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Trimmed several sections
I've slimmed down this article a bit more. I've created a new article on "Views on the Kyoto Protocol", with some of the information that I've deleted moved there. Other stuff I've deleted has been moved to other articles. I've deleted unsourced content on the precautionary principle.

Objectives
Proponents also note that Kyoto is a first step [...]

I've moved this to the section on support, which itself has been moved to a new article.

2012 emission targets and "flexible mechanisms"
I've moved the old description of the flexibility mechanisms into the article on flexibility mechanisms. I've replaced it with a new description.

Details of the agreement
I've deleted the section on flexibility mechanisms. I previously moved the longer revision of this section to the article on flexibility mechanisms. My summary of the flexibility mechanisms is now contained entirely in the earlier section.

Current positions of governments
Canada:

By 2004, CO2 emissions had risen to 27% above the level in 1990, which compares unfavorably with the 16% increase in emissions in the U.S. in the same time.

I've not been able to find this comparison in the cited source. I also do not see why Canadian emissions are only compared against the US's emissions. I've slimmed this down to:

In 2004, CO2 emissions had risen to 27% above the level in 1990

Economics
I added this section to replace a section on cost-benefit analysis. However, since this article is still too long, I've decided to move this section to the new article I've created on views on the Kyoto Protocol. I've moved the section on benchmarking to the UNFCCC article.

Views on the Protocol
I've deleted this entire section and replaced it with a summary. The old content has been moved to a new article. In the summary, I've tried to correct for what I believe to be a bias towards economic assessments of the Protocol.

The section on the "precautionary principle" has been moved to the UNFCCC article:

Supporters of the Kyoto Protocol are committed to the precautionary principle.[citation needed] Critics point out that additional higher curbs on carbon emission are likely to cause significantly higher increase in cost, making such defense moot.[citation needed] Moreover, the precautionary principle could apply to any political, social, economic or environmental consequence, which might have equally devastating effect in terms of poverty and environment, making the precautionary argument irrelevant.[citation needed]

Since no one has provided sources to support this paragraph, I've deleted it. Enescot (talk) 21:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Good work. Its all good. I will delete that sentence in the introduction "Countries including Japan, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain and others are actively promoting government carbon funds, supporting multilateral carbon funds intent on purchasing carbon credits from non-Annex I countries,[4] and are working closely with their major utility, energy, oil and gas and chemicals conglomerates to acquire greenhouse gas certificates as cheaply as possible." as its been [citation needed] for ages. And ref [4] is a reference to a glossary, not a secondary source. Mrfebruary (talk) 00:14, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Update of Australia, Canada, and the EU
I've updated Australia, Canada, and the EU. A source for the EU total GHG emissions (~20% of total global emissions) was not cited, and is considerably higher than that given by MNP (2007). Also, it is not consistent to only cite the EU's total emissions figure. You should also have per-capita emissions given. I think this extra information should be included in the sub-article on government action. In this article, I think it's best to limit info to ratification and whether or not the country/region will meet its target. Enescot (talk) 08:47, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

German and UK cuts
I've deleted the mention of an 8% cut in German and UK emissions. This figure is from Aldy et al (2003), but it is not correct. See IEA (2006) and (2007). The correct figures are 21% for Germany and 12.5% for the UK. Enescot (talk) 06:35, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Hartwell paper moved
I've moved the reference to the Hartwell paper to the article on views on the Kyoto Protocol. I don't see that it deserves prominence over other viewpoints. The IPCC report offers the widest summary of academic views on the Kyoto Protocol. It's the most widely reviewed and approved report. It's already referred to in this article (Gupta et al 2007).

I also think the existing revision gives a reasonably balanced summary of views on the Kyoto Protocol. I don't think the Hartwell paper improves balance. In fact I think it makes things more unbalanced. In terms of academic viewpoints, we already have reference to Gupta et al, Grubb, World Bank, Stern and Liverman. Apart from the World Bank, the other sources are used to give an impression of generalized viewpoints on Kyoto, rather than individual views. That is appropriate for a section that is intended to be a summary of most viewpoints. Enescot (talk) 04:57, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that the full edit is more appropriate where you moved it, but because it deserves a similar prominence as other views I am restoring just a couple of lines considering the attention it has received in the press.---Mariordo (talk) 05:12, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Enescot reply
Hello

To start off, I should say they I hope you don't view my criticisms as rudeness. Because of the concerns I specified earlier, I've put in some tags regarding the paragraph. I disagree that this article deserves mention of this paper in this top-level article. I'm not in favour of using newspaper attention as a criterion for notability. In my opinion, the judge of quality should be expert analysis, along with other guides to notability, e.g., many environmental groups have said X, various countries have said Y, business groups... etc. If newspaper notability is to be used, it is biased to concentrate only on the english-speaking media. In my view, this bias towards english-speaking-rich-country views is not acceptable for a subject that affects all regions of the world.

Use of expert analysis

In my opinion, expert analysis should be used to present an overview of the views of experts. It should not be used to cite support for one particular viewpoint. Doing this means that the article does not present a balanced treatment of the subject. To present a balanced view would require a complete description of various expert views. That would require a huge amount of space. While you may have the view that this Hartwell analysis is more notable than others, my criterion for assessment of notability is the IPCC report. Newspapers are not experts when it comes to assessing the quality of a study. Also, relying on a literature assessment is I feel a far more "encyclopedic" way of assessing the merits of a study than using newspapers.

A logical continuation of newspaper notability could lead to a serious reduction in the quality of this article. For example, there's probably all kinds of rubbish about Kyoto produced by the Wall Street Journal or broadcast on Fox News. So if you are to use newspapers as sources for notability, I think the quality goes down, because newspapers are rubbish, and secondly, it's far harder to judge notability and bias.

So, for example, we could have lots of notable articles on Kyoto from US newspapers, or UK newspapers, or Australian newspapers. But the subject, the Kyoto Protocol, is international. It would be biased to concentrate only on notability based on views in these countries. Was the Hartwell paper mentioned in Japanese newspapers? French newspapers? African newspapers? Chinese newspapers? That would perhaps be notable, at least on the assumption that newspapers editors have a clue what a "notable" study actually is. As I've stated, I think they have no clue whatsoever.

So for balance, we would need at least to have some viewpoints from media in developing countries. For developed countries, we should avoid bias towards english-speaking countries.

Fair use of media stories

Another major problem with the newpaper notability criterion is that it is highly unscientific. It would be more encylopedic and rigorous to cite research into how the Kyoto Protocol has been reported by the media in various countries. That would hopefully prevent any bias towards some views of the media over others. I think that would be a more objective and sensible use of media reporting in this article than the newspaper notability criterion.

Previous revision

If I can contrast this with the earlier revision that I wrote, I think this was relatively unbiased. I mean this in the sense that I attempted to be as inclusive as possible of all world viewpoints. Gupta et al was approved by the IPCC, and as part of that literature assessment, contributing experts had to come from different countries:

''Gupta et al.. (2007) assessed the literature on climate change policy. They found that no authoritative assessments of the UNFCCC or its Protocol asserted that these agreements had, or will, succeed in solving the climate problem.''

This is an important statement, since it is based on a literature assessment. It is not based on the views of any one particular study. The assessment by Gupta et al has been approved by a large number of governments as being fair and balanced.

The World Bank is an international institution, I therefore think it's appropriate to use the World Development Report in this article. The other academic sources I used were all used to convey general viewpoints, e.g., many environmentalists think X, rather than being used to promote particular views on Kyoto. The Liverman source includes at least one developing country viewpoint, I believe. If anything, the previous revision was biased towards english-speaking country viewpoints. This bias, in my view, is made even worse by your addition.

Failure to cut emissions

I've also put in a dubious tag for their claim that the Kyoto Protocol has failed to cut emissions. Assessing cuts requires a baseline against which the effectiveness of policy is judged. Defining this "no-policy" baseline is extremely difficult, therefore any analyses are highly uncertain. Any academic study into Kyoto (or any other policy, for that matter) will make it clear how difficult it is to assess the effectiveness of policies to reduce emissions. To make the statement that Kyoto has "completely failed" is wrong for two reasons:
 * it implies too great a degree of certainty over the ability to judge the effectiveness of Kyoto
 * it is a POV statement, which is not balanced in the article.

On the second point, my criticism goes back to my earlier criticism of only citing one academic study into climate change policy. By citing only the Hartwell paper, you are only putting forward one view on what policy should be. Some might view emissions growth in developing countries as a good thing, since emissions are linked with social and economic development. You could also point to how the emissions reduction trajectory implied by Kyoto could set us off for deeper cuts in the future. On the other hand, there are any number of other criticisms you could make of Kyoto - its use of cap-and-trade instead of a carbon tax, the targets are too expensive, not enough attention is given to adaptation etc. These are all summarized by Gupta et al.

Policy recommendations

Two criticisms here:
 * 1) Their policy proposals do not deserve priority over policy proposals
 * 2) The section is called "views on the Kyoto Protocol". I don't see why policy proposals should be included in this section. If they are to be included, they should be put in the "successor" section on post-Kyoto agreements.

(1) The issue of recommending policy I think is inappropriate. There are a very large number of policy proposals on climate change, put across by governments, NGOs and academic analyses (see Gupta et al 2007). I see no reason for the recommendations of this group of academics to have priority of any other of the analyses by other groups. As I stated earlier, I think that newspapers are no judge of quality or notability. I also do not see why their support for a particular climate policy deserves mention over the policy suggestions made by national governments or regional bodies, e.g., the Copenhagen Accord, the G8's 2 degrees C policy objective, the views of developing countries, vulnerable nations etc.

(1 and 2) On the issue of the the "failure" of Copenhagen, this is an opinion that needs balancing. Frankly I don't see why Copenhagen should be mentioned in a section that is entitled "views on the Kyoto Protocol". Copenhagen did not agree on any second round Kyoto commitments. It is therefore difficult for me to see how Copenhagen is relevant to this section. Enescot (talk) 08:06, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Mariordo's reply - I will be brief:

Also I would like to hear other opinions, but I am removing the repeated and unnecessary tags and leaving the others until more regulars give us their take.--Mariordo (talk) 17:23, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
 * This paper was produced by academics and practitioners from several fields, under a collaboration of the Mckinder Programme of the Study of Long Wave Events (London School of Economics) and the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (Oxford University). Among the authors is Mike Hulme, from the School of Envrironmental Sciences, University of East Anglia (yes, the same involved in Climategate and some of the hacked e-mails are from him) and he is founding Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. Also Roger A. Pielke, Jr., professor in the Environmental Studies Program and a Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Therefore, these guys have sufficient credentials and expertise to have credibility (and they are not "deniers"), and proof of it is that The Economist, Science (Journal), BBC News, and the New York Times among others provided coverage and criticism to their paper. There has been already enough notability to merit the inclusion of the Hartwell Paper.
 * I believe you are confusing the nature of the paper, it is about policy not about science . In fact, your tag requesting "opinion needs balancing" is absolutely ridiculous, you are questioning the paper content itself, when clearly it is their opinion (right or wrong, whether you agree or not) as already stated. The Hartwell paper is proposing a different approach, and do not agree with the Kyoto approach, that's it. And because it is an alternative proposal beyond than simply criticizing Kyoto (which they do), it properly belongs to the view section. As for balance, NPOV mandates we have other points of view, and this article is about Kyoto, and the Hartwell paper precisely offers other POV from a view of experts who believe another policies should be pursued given their perceived failure of Copenhagen (though most commentators agree it was a failure).
 * If an article about the Hartwell paper gets created (I do not think there is enough notability yet for a full article), this eventual article would be the place to included reactions and criticisms to the paper. If you do it here (the sources I already provided include some) then you will have to extend the discussion in the Kyoto article, which I believe it is not appropriate as it would give undue balance to the Hartwell paper as compared to the other views already presented in the section.


 * I will be briefer. There is a page called 'Views on the Kyoto Protocol'. The Hartwell paper is just another policy critique of the Kyoto Protocol. The most substantive description of it should be on that page where it can be read alongside the many other perspectives on the KP. Given there is a page 'Views on the Kyoto Protocol', some care is needed on deciding what is summarised on the the main KP page to avoid undue weight. So, I agree with Enescot's original action in moving the bulk of the material to 'Views on the Kyoto Protocol' and in my opinion his edit should not have been reverted. Mrfebruary (talk) 12:56, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Why is the overall result of Kyoto such a mystery?
I'm frankly puzzled you can't find such a simple piece of statistical data in this article anywhere, as the change in total GG emissions during the period from its inception to date. We know the GG emissions of individual countries, but it's a global problem. Shouldn't there be a graph somewhere? Did they go up or did they go down? And why should we see this continued emphasis on things like "the per capita emissions of non annex 1 nations is still lower than..." if the intent of Kyoto was to lower global emissions? Was that the intent or was it to even per capita rates worldwide to fair and equitable levels for all? Can we get some raw statistics and put them on a graph or table and see what the result of all this has been? The section which purports to address it from 1990 to present really appears to confuse and obfuscate. Batvette (talk) 12:38, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * You've made several points here. On your point about emissions data, data is included. The cited work by the World Bank, IEA, PBL and others, are all emissions data. I'm not quite sure what you mean by statistical data, and how this is different.


 * The reason that Annex I emissions are concentrated on in the article is because they're the ones with targets. There is no global target set in Kyoto. It's true that global emissions are important for the UNFCCC's ultimate objective, but that objective hasn't been quantitatively defined. Additionally, Kyoto's purpose extends beyond just curbing global emissions growth. It includes considerations of equity, the most important one being that non-Annex I countries don't have caps.


 * The issue to do with per capita emissions is important since it is an equity issue. It's true that global emissions are important as well, but from the perspective of developed/developing country action, per capita emissions matter. Other things matter from an equity perspective as well, including historical emissions, projected emissions, and per capita income levels. All these issues play a part in the UNFCCC process.


 * Your point about equitable long-term emissions allocation is related to Kyoto, but Kyoto does not set long-term allocations. In terms of how this relates to Kyoto, it is a matter of subjective evaluation of the treaty.


 * I'd have no problem adding more data to the article so long as that data is not biased. Lots of data are relevant for Kyoto. I've already given several examples, like cumulative emissions. Some of this data is already included in the article and the Kyoto sub-articles.


 * On the point of how this data relates to the effects of Kyoto, this is a matter of subjective evaluation. Evaluations are already included in the article's "views" section. Some think the Kyoto targets are too low, for example. I don't think it's feasible to have all the data deemed to be relevant included in this article. If you look at the Gupta et al literature assessment (referred to in the article), lots of papers have been written about Kyoto and future international agreements. I think the best thing to do is concentrate on fundamental bits of information, like the Annex I targets. Other data relevant to evaluations should be put in the views on the Kyoto Protocol sub-article.


 * On your criticisms of the GHG emissions since 1990, I wrote this section. My intention was to provide a balanced and global overview of changes in emissions since 1990. In my opinion, the section succeeds in doing this. As I stated earlier, since there is lots of data relevant to Kyoto, I concentrated on Annex I emissions since these countries have targets. You could include other data as well, however, there is a danger that doing this could create an implicit bias.


 * Bias can be subtle. For example, you could list national emission changes since 1990, but some countries think per capita emissions are important. To avoid bias, you'd need to include per capita emission changes.


 * I do recognize that data is necessary in assessing the effectiveness of Kyoto. In my contributions to this article, I've divided this data into two categories. The first category includes lots of emissions data and is part of the Kyoto Protocol and government action sub-article. The intention of this article is to provide an overview of policies implemented by Kyoto countries. The second category is the "views" sub-article. This uses data deemed relevant by evaluators of Kyoto in an overview of opinions on Kyoto. The advantage of presenting data from the viewpoint of third-parties is that it avoids the possibility of accidental or implicit bias when citing relevant data. The relevance of data to Kyoto's success or failure is purely a third-party matter.


 * To conclude, I don't agree with your criticisms of the article. I agree that data is important, but that data must be presented in an unbiased way. Since so much data is relevant in some way to Kyoto, there is a danger of presenting data that creates an implicit bias towards the viewpoints of certain countries. I think the best way of avoiding this is to concentrate only on the Annex I targets, and leave broader issues on the success or failure of the treaty to the "views" sub-article.


 * I wouldn't object to UNFCCC data on Annex I countries emissions being presented. I should note that some of this data is already included in the government action sub-article. Enescot (talk) 03:29, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Well I think your beginning statement that there is no global target set or that there is a side motivation besides overall global emissions conflicts with the lede of the article-
 * The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC), aimed at fighting global warming. The UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty with the goal of achieving "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."
 * I know I'm approaching discussion of the article's subject, not the article, but the subject is what people come to the article to find out about so this is inevitable. At least your honesty is refreshing that you'll admit equity amongst poor and wealthy nations is sought but that doesn't appear anywhere in the article! Indeed if it did perhaps those who accepted Kyoto's stated goal of saving the earth by stabilizing GG emissions would reject it because assisting the impoverished nations with their greater population levels to achieve higher living standards on an equity with wealthier nations is completely contradictory with that. If a simple graph with the global levels of greenhouse gas emissions by all countries combined over Kyoto's term were displayed, wouldn't that make it pretty easy for even a small child to decide if Kyoto "worked"? We are at a supposedly crucial time with a new set of plans being proposed that amounts to Kyoto.2, or KyotoImproved, at the same time climatologists are really ringing the alarm bells that we REALLY need to do MORE. If it's really making the problem worse by accelerating the industrialization of large populations, why would we want that obfuscated? How would that even help the annex 1 nations? Again, this confronts the subject, but it is a most "inconvenient truth" and my motivation in doing so IS saving the earth.Batvette (talk) 08:24, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

The UNFCCC's objective is not defined quantitatively, and is open to wide interpretation. You say that equity isn't mentioned, but the bit on negotiations says:

''At the first UNFCCC Conference of the Parties in Berlin, the G77 (a coalition of 77 developing nations within the UN) was able to push for a mandate where it was recognized that (Liverman, 2008, p. 12):[26]
 * developed nations had contributed most to the then-current concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere
 * developing country emissions per-capita were still relatively low
 * and that the share of global emissions from developing countries would grow to meet their development needs.

Climate justice is mentioned in the "views" section:

Some of the criticism of the Protocol has been based on the idea of climate justice (Liverman, 2008, p. 14).[26] This has particularly centred on the balance between the low emissions and high vulnerability of the developing world to climate change, compared to high emissions in the developed world.

One the issue of Kyoto's successes or failures, you're obviously entitled to your own views. The treaty hasn't cut global emissions significantly, but whether you view that as a problem or not is a matter of judgement.

Getting back to evaluating Kyoto, I take your point to be that the article should provide information which readers can then use to make a judgement on Kyoto. I don't think this is appropriate. I think that it is better to be objective and concentrate on what various people think about Kyoto, like different countries, environmental groups, etc. Like I said earlier, their opinions are based on a broader range of factors than just emissions.

I stick with my own view that the article should focus mainly on Annex I emissions. I should have mentioned earlier that global emissions are mentioned in the GHG article. I've put in a link to the sub-section of this article for interested readers. Global emissions are also commented on in the "views" section:

World Bank (2010, p. 233) commented on how the Kyoto Protocol had only had a slight effect on curbing global emissions growth.[13] The treaty was negotiated in 1997, but by 2005, energy-related emissions had grown 24%.

Environmentalists and scientists are mentioned:

Some environmentalists and scientists have criticized the existing commitments for being too weak (Grubb, 2000, p. 5)

My own opinion is that the article cannot overstate any one group's or individual's views on this matter. Some think Kyoto is a failure because the targets were too weak, others think that they were too strong. I think that it is possible to get a pretty good idea of which countries think which of these statements is true by looking at the negotiations section. Obviously countries that pressed for strong targets probably think that Kyoto's targets are too weak. Enescot (talk) 05:59, 30 May 2010 (UTC)


 * 1, I think the lede should reflect the part about equity to provide better transparancy about Kyoto proponents' agenda.
 * 2, it's not about my own opinion or yours, regarding the success of Kyoto. Kyoto was presented to the world with the sole motivation of stabilizing GG emissions to mitigate damage from AGW/climate change, regardless of language buried within. I think if you simply added up the figures we can't easily find we'd see it didn't just not significantly lower GG emissions, the global total increased significantly during its time.
 * 3 I am not unsympathetic to the impoverished/non annex 1 nations here, and while I'm taking some liberties in making assumptions about yourself and others, I would assess what's going on with pro-Kyoto people such as yourself is you feel guilty about damage to the planet as well as being part of the richer nations who have caused this. This is of course noble enough that I respect that. However within the pro-AGW camp are many financial and political opportunists, as well as corrupt officials within those non annex 1 nations who are all backing those of you who are merely ideology driven for the right reasons. Kyoto has created a vehicle for them to profit, accelerating the industrialization of massive populations in the process, which you may condone as a good thing and not want to admit how contradictory two platforms of ideology could be.
 * This is of course not about you and me and it probably seems silly to take it to the personal level. However if I am right about the ideologies of yourself (your argument suggests this) or others, you hold your beliefs for pure intentions, but you certainly have a dilemma to face. Will the earth survive the efforts of those who think they are saving it, but only made things worse and assisted the profiteers who continued to exploit the poor? Batvette (talk) 01:42, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Merged government positions and emissions trends sections
I've restructured the article, using information from the Kyoto Protocol and government action sub-article. Information previously contained in the main Kyoto Protocol article, including actions in Japan and Brazil, have been moved to the sub-article. I've merged the section on "Current positions of governments" and "Change in greenhouse gas emission since 1990." I could see no reason why these two sections needed to be kept separate. Also, I didn't see the purpose of the current positions section. Countries that have ratified the treaty were already mentioned in the emission trends section.

Another problem with the current position section was that it offered only a partial description of government actions to do with Kyoto. The new revision lumps together all the Annex I and non-Annex I countries. I've included info on non-Annex I countries on stuff not to do with emissions, e.g., stuff on income levels and sustainable development. These things that are relevant to the UNFCCC process, and are part of the synthesis report produced by the UNFCCC. Enescot (talk) 07:16, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Nicely done. Mrfebruary (talk) 02:36, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Emissions - Wrong Data
in the "Emissions" section USA is listed as 100% which surely can't be. Someone care to verify this data? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.159.17.137 (talk) 14:21, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * It was vandalism, and I've reverted it. --Nigelj (talk) 16:40, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Maps
In the past week, two more maps have been added. Although I think them better descriptive of the activity of countries with respect to the Protocol, the connections seem to be biased, and possibly the descriptions may be original with the map creator. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:14, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Removed analysis
From the "Ratification process" section:

''The most notable non-party to the Protocol is the United States, which is a party to UNFCCC and was responsible for 36.1% of the 1990 emission levels of Annex I countries. Most advanced developing countries like China, India and Brazil are still in the non-annex or similar group. This makes them without obligations in the Kyoto protocol to limit their CO2 emissions. As of Nov. 2010, these countries have not changed their minds about signing in as Annex-1 countries and thereby making them able to obligate themselves to a reduction. But making obligations to the protocol are not simple, as they also can be seen as damages to national competitivenesse. The Protocol can be signed and ratified only by parties to UNFCCC, (Article 24) and a country can withdraw by giving 12 months notice. (Article 27)''

I've deleted this. The information presented is unattributed analysis. The "ratification process" section should, in my opinion, only contain descriptive material. Analysis and views should be contained in the "views on the protocol" section. I think that the article must have a clear separation between descriptive information and subjective analysis.

Information on the US's non-ratification is contained in the article in several sections. The issue of non-Annex I emissions is covered in the "Government action" section. In my opinion, detailed (and attributed) analysis should be placed either in the Kyoto Protocol and government action or Views on the Kyoto Protocol sub-articles. Enescot (talk) 02:14, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Map colors
This is a small issue, but would it be possible to change the map colors to something other than dark-green/red? As a person who is red-green color blind the participation map is very difficult to read.72.71.243.114 (talk) 00:56, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I went ahead and changed the map color from red to blue. Should help with the problem you are addressing. Hope you can read this one more clearly.Abhinav777 (talk) 15:13, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Dated graph
The graph that's been added on progress towards the Kyoto targets is dated. For example, see this recent publication by the European Environment Agency (PDF, p17):


 * In 2008, the first year of the commitment period, GHG emissions in eight EU-15 Member States (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom), nine EU-12 Member States (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia) and one other EEA member country (Norway) were lower than their respective Kyoto targets, taking into account the effect of domestic emission trading schemes. These countries were therefore on track towards achieving their Kyoto commitments in 2008.
 * Taking into account the intended use of flexible mechanisms and emission reductions from LULUCF activities over the full commitment period, five additional Member States (Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain) and one other EEA member country (Iceland) are also on track towards their targets in 2008.
 * Three EU Member States (Austria, Denmark and Italy), two other EEA member countries (Liechtenstein and Switzerland) as well as one EU candidate country (Croatia) need to further reduce emissions by 2012 or plan to increase their quantity of Kyoto units further than they currently do in order to achieve their respective Kyoto targets.

I've added a link to the Kyoto Protocol and government action sub-article which contains more recent emissions data. Enescot (talk) 01:50, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing that out. I simply moved the graph from the List of signatories article as it is more in scope of this article. Unfortunately the EU document you link to only talks of European countries, but if you know of any source which contains a dataset for all Annex I countries could try to do an updated SVG graph. --Elekhh (talk) 02:28, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Text Query
Is the text at the top of the 2nd paragraph in the section 2012 emission targets and "flexible mechanisms" supposed to be highlighted in blue? I don't about you but it looks a trifle odd...Willbat (talk) 04:50, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Oops, I see why now. Please disregard the above statement. Willbat (talk) 05:06, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Map colors and -150% ???
Map (File:Kyoto36-2005.png) appears still or again in red/green (with both colors very similar in brightness). I suggest that a) out of considerateness to red/green color-blind persons (as suggested by 72.71.243.114, 17 September 2010) AND b) 'cause red/green usually signify dis/approval (as explained by Enescot, 24 April 2011) this ought to be improved.

(If I read correctly) Map shows "percentage change..." and, iianm, Latvia is shown to have achieved about -150. I do not understand how "net annual national GHG emissions" could be reduced by 150%, and if this is not an error, an explanatory note would be very-nice-2-have. Wda (talk) 16:07, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I've replaced the color versions of the map and bar graph with greyscale versions. The data for the bar graph are available in the World Bank Technical Report (PDF) referred to in the article - Table A1:2, p75 of 100 of PDF. It shows that Latvia's emissions (including land use, land use change, and forestry activities - LULUCF) in 1990 were 5,772 Gt CO2. In 2005, emissions had fallen to -3,552 Gt CO2, presumably through LULUCF activities, i.e., net emissions were below zero compared 1990 levels. It may also be due to the allocation of sink credits (see Dessai, 2003, p15 of 27 of PDF), but I don't know this for sure. Enescot (talk) 05:37, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Wording issue?
I'm not sure if this is right or wrong so I'm putting it here and letting someone else decide. In the introduction, we have this:

The Protocol was initially adopted on 11 December 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, and entered into force on 16 February 2005. As of September 2011, 191 states have signed and ratified the protocol.[5] The only remaining signatory not to have ratified the protocol is the United States. Other states yet to ratify Kyoto include Afghanistan, Andorra and South Sudan, after Somalia ratified the protocol on 26 July 2010.

I'm not sure if it's poor wording or what, but to me that says that the US, Afghanistan, Andorra and South Sudan all have to ratify, so I don't understand why the sentence singling out the US. Perhaps it means that the US has signed but not ratified, while the other countries haven't signed, in which case would it be worth re-writing? Or maybe it's just too early for me, I don't know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.162.179.159 (talk) 22:30, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Problem with maps
The colour schemes are biased in all the introduction's maps. Red, I take to be a sign of disapproval and green approval. Whether or not you approve of a country's Kyoto obligations is a matter of opinion. It is, however, inappropriate to implicitly express those views through a map. Additionally, as the "negotiations" section and "kyoto protocol and government" action sub-article makes clear, the issue of whether or not a country is doing "well" or not is a highly complex matter.

I've retained the first graph. Apart from the colour scheme, it appears to be reasonably objective. I'm a bit confused by the distinction between "undecided" countries and "countries who have no intention of ratifying". No citations are provided to support this distinction.

I've removed the second map that classified Kyoto Parties emission reduction commitments either as a reduction, no reduction, or no commitment at all. First of all, it is biased to concentrate only on emission reduction commitments. The UNFCCC places a wide variety of commitments on all Parties. An objective classification would break countries down as being either Annex I (ratified), Annex I (not ratified), Annex I EIT, or non-Annex I. It was also too vague in specifying either a reduction or no reduction. It is necessary to specify the exact commitment level. Such information would be better presented as a bar graph.

My removal of the third map is also due to my concern over implicit bias. The treaty's classification of countries is between Annex I, Annex I EIT, and non-Annex I. To classify countries according to whether or not they have an emission reduction commitment is implicitly analytical, and, in my view, not acceptable. Enescot (talk) 04:36, 16 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and modified the image to use blue instead of red and edited the corresponding descriptions. I hope this helps with some of the NPOV disputes. If I went about doing the change in the proper manner or not I would more than grateful to know.Abhinav777 (talk) 15:20, 21 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much for making the changes. Enescot (talk) 15:32, 24 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I will have to disagree with your point of view. The classification of whether countries have agreed to make a reduction in the emissions is really what points out one of the central points in the Kyoto protocol - where the in the world goverments have agreed to tip the development into a reduction rather than expansion of GHG. Of course their are many details behind the Annex B in the protocol left out of this map, but as the title states that is not the scope - only the commitment to reduction. It would be great to make a map where annex I countries and non-annex I countries are categorized independently since this plays a big role in whether caps restricts their emission-development, however since the map need to be in black, grey and white this is not practical. You could make a diagram - however this would leave out the great world overview of the regional parts that have shifted their development to a comitted reduction. Then again the real world emission figures are something different.
 * The Kyoto protocol is of course not simpel by far - in example the mechanism for calculating emissions on top is not directly comparable between the countries since their base years vary by many yars in some cases, which some arguably benefit from.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Flemmong (talk • contribs) 13:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I still stand by what I said earlier - concentrating only on emissions reductions ignores other important aspects of the UNFCCC and Kyoto treaties, e.g., equity. I also feel that the map is unnecessary since a bar graph is already included showing the Annex I countries emission reduction commitments. I think that my change of the map to greyscale is an improvement since the map no longer gives the impression of approval of certain countries (green) or disapproval (yellow/red). I certainly agree that it would be better to distinguish between Annex I and non-Annex I countries. I think that categorizing non-Annex I Parties with those of Annex I Parties with caps and ratification (e.g., Sweden) is not at all helpful. An option would be to use shading in the map (e.g., hatches or lines). This would allow the map to retain neutrality (in my opinion), be readable to those with color blindness, and allow there to be more categories of countries. Enescot (talk) 13:25, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with having a map of emissions reductions, even if there are slight base level inconsistencies. I don't think that having a graph of a given metric mean that we're explicitly or implicitly focusing only on that part of the Kyoto Protocol. As long as that's not the only visual included on the whole page, I don't see a problem. If the whole point of Wikipedia is to provide accessible information to the public, the more visuals like maps (which enable quick, easy understanding) we can provide, the better. Besides, the bar graph with the 36 'Kyoto' countries is, arguably, difficult to read, less visually pleasing than a map, and maybe less likely to be clicked on. So why not have a map of emissions reductions? *Regarding the grayscale map, if anything, this map suffers from grouping so many countries of different statuses into the pale gray category. Regarding map color schemes, how far should we be taking the idea that map colors create biases? I mean one could even argue that the different shades of gray have certain biased connotations. Also in the map, what is called 'dark gray' looks pretty much like black to me, so why is it called dark gray? Perhaps there are still some limitations to the grayscale map. Regarding use of colors, are we being overly vigilant about inherent biases of different colors...I mean, should we stop using the colors red and blue in U.S. elections because of the connotations these colors have? Finally, arguing that classifying countries by reduction commitments is biased b/c it's implicitly analytical doesn't seem like a valid concern to me. This is a major consideration within the treaty that need not be de-emphasized. Indicators of implementation, compliance, and effectiveness are hugely important features of any treaty and its not fair to say that displaying these indicators prominently of the Wikipedia page of a treaty is biased. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.16.112.128 (talk) 03:46, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

from "Government actions and emissions" section
''[...] [non-Annex I countries] are not obligated by the limits of emissions in the Kyoto Protocol (p. 4). Fast growing economy countries like China, South Africa, India and Brazil are still in this non-obligated group [...]''

This text is unsourced and I've deleted it. It's also implicitly analytical. Any analysis should be explicit, attributable and placed in the "views on the protocol" section.

[...] As the Non-Annex 1 countries are not obligated to any commitment on emissions some critics argue that their signatures on the protocol have been free and unsignificant.[...]

Unsourced analysis and in the wrong section.

From the "Views on the Protocol" section
''[...]Australia, under former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, has since ratified the treaty. it took effect in March, 2008. Despite ratification, Australia has thus far not implemented nany national legislation to bring itself into compliance.[...]''

The second sentence is unsourced and inaccurate, so I've removed it.

Time wasting vandalism
When I look at this article, it appears to be often subject to vandalism. Some vandalism has obviously not been spotted, e.g., "Human-induced warming of the climate is expected to continue" has been vandalized, it used to read "Human-induced warming of the climate is expected to through the 21st century." There also appears to be other uncorrected examples of vandalism in the article. Enescot (talk) 04:36, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

hot air?
The "Green Investment Scheme" talks about trading 'hot air'. If this is a technical term, it should be explained; it it is vandalism it should be fixed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.230.129.199 (talk) 16:49, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing that out. I've updated the article with an explanation of the term. Enescot (talk) 13:24, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Copyvios?
This article seems to be full of text copied and pasted from the cited sources. Here's one example:  Between 2001, the first year CDM projects could be registered, and 2012, the end of the Kyoto commitment period, the CDM is expected to produce some 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in emission reductions.., in this section, taken word for word from here on page 262. --Johnsemlak (talk) 02:34, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I added the above text, and I do not think that I have infringed copyright. As I understand it, short excerpts from copyrighted sources are acceptable. The cited source is several hundred pages long, and the text used in the article is a very small proportion of the source. Enescot (talk) 12:56, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Hartwell paper moved
I've moved the reference to the Hartwell paper to the article on views on the Kyoto Protocol. I don't see that it deserves prominence over other viewpoints. The IPCC report offers the widest summary of academic views on the Kyoto Protocol. It's the most widely reviewed and approved report. It's already referred to in this article (Gupta et al 2007).

I also think the existing revision gives a reasonably balanced summary of views on the Kyoto Protocol. I don't think the Hartwell paper improves balance. In fact I think it makes things more unbalanced. In terms of academic viewpoints, we already have reference to Gupta et al, Grubb, World Bank, Stern and Liverman. Apart from the World Bank, the other sources are used to give an impression of generalized viewpoints on Kyoto, rather than individual views. That is appropriate for a section that is intended to be a summary of most viewpoints. Enescot (talk) 04:57, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that the full edit is more appropriate where you moved it, but because it deserves a similar prominence as other views I am restoring just a couple of lines considering the attention it has received in the press.---Mariordo (talk) 05:12, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Enescot reply
Hello

To start off, I should say they I hope you don't view my criticisms as rudeness. Because of the concerns I specified earlier, I've put in some tags regarding the paragraph. I disagree that this article deserves mention of this paper in this top-level article. I'm not in favour of using newspaper attention as a criterion for notability. In my opinion, the judge of quality should be expert analysis, along with other guides to notability, e.g., many environmental groups have said X, various countries have said Y, business groups... etc. If newspaper notability is to be used, it is biased to concentrate only on the english-speaking media. In my view, this bias towards english-speaking-rich-country views is not acceptable for a subject that affects all regions of the world.

Use of expert analysis

In my opinion, expert analysis should be used to present an overview of the views of experts. It should not be used to cite support for one particular viewpoint. Doing this means that the article does not present a balanced treatment of the subject. To present a balanced view would require a complete description of various expert views. That would require a huge amount of space. While you may have the view that this Hartwell analysis is more notable than others, my criterion for assessment of notability is the IPCC report. Newspapers are not experts when it comes to assessing the quality of a study. Also, relying on a literature assessment is I feel a far more "encyclopedic" way of assessing the merits of a study than using newspapers.

A logical continuation of newspaper notability could lead to a serious reduction in the quality of this article. For example, there's probably all kinds of rubbish about Kyoto produced by the Wall Street Journal or broadcast on Fox News. So if you are to use newspapers as sources for notability, I think the quality goes down, because newspapers are rubbish, and secondly, it's far harder to judge notability and bias.

So, for example, we could have lots of notable articles on Kyoto from US newspapers, or UK newspapers, or Australian newspapers. But the subject, the Kyoto Protocol, is international. It would be biased to concentrate only on notability based on views in these countries. Was the Hartwell paper mentioned in Japanese newspapers? French newspapers? African newspapers? Chinese newspapers? That would perhaps be notable, at least on the assumption that newspapers editors have a clue what a "notable" study actually is. As I've stated, I think they have no clue whatsoever.

So for balance, we would need at least to have some viewpoints from media in developing countries. For developed countries, we should avoid bias towards english-speaking countries.

Fair use of media stories

Another major problem with the newpaper notability criterion is that it is highly unscientific. It would be more encylopedic and rigorous to cite research into how the Kyoto Protocol has been reported by the media in various countries. That would hopefully prevent any bias towards some views of the media over others. I think that would be a more objective and sensible use of media reporting in this article than the newspaper notability criterion.

Previous revision

If I can contrast this with the earlier revision that I wrote, I think this was relatively unbiased. I mean this in the sense that I attempted to be as inclusive as possible of all world viewpoints. Gupta et al was approved by the IPCC, and as part of that literature assessment, contributing experts had to come from different countries:

''Gupta et al.. (2007) assessed the literature on climate change policy. They found that no authoritative assessments of the UNFCCC or its Protocol asserted that these agreements had, or will, succeed in solving the climate problem.''

This is an important statement, since it is based on a literature assessment. It is not based on the views of any one particular study. The assessment by Gupta et al has been approved by a large number of governments as being fair and balanced.

The World Bank is an international institution, I therefore think it's appropriate to use the World Development Report in this article. The other academic sources I used were all used to convey general viewpoints, e.g., many environmentalists think X, rather than being used to promote particular views on Kyoto. The Liverman source includes at least one developing country viewpoint, I believe. If anything, the previous revision was biased towards english-speaking country viewpoints. This bias, in my view, is made even worse by your addition.

Failure to cut emissions

I've also put in a dubious tag for their claim that the Kyoto Protocol has failed to cut emissions. Assessing cuts requires a baseline against which the effectiveness of policy is judged. Defining this "no-policy" baseline is extremely difficult, therefore any analyses are highly uncertain. Any academic study into Kyoto (or any other policy, for that matter) will make it clear how difficult it is to assess the effectiveness of policies to reduce emissions. To make the statement that Kyoto has "completely failed" is wrong for two reasons:
 * it implies too great a degree of certainty over the ability to judge the effectiveness of Kyoto
 * it is a POV statement, which is not balanced in the article.

On the second point, my criticism goes back to my earlier criticism of only citing one academic study into climate change policy. By citing only the Hartwell paper, you are only putting forward one view on what policy should be. Some might view emissions growth in developing countries as a good thing, since emissions are linked with social and economic development. You could also point to how the emissions reduction trajectory implied by Kyoto could set us off for deeper cuts in the future. On the other hand, there are any number of other criticisms you could make of Kyoto - its use of cap-and-trade instead of a carbon tax, the targets are too expensive, not enough attention is given to adaptation etc. These are all summarized by Gupta et al.

Policy recommendations

Two criticisms here:
 * 1) Their policy proposals do not deserve priority over policy proposals
 * 2) The section is called "views on the Kyoto Protocol". I don't see why policy proposals should be included in this section. If they are to be included, they should be put in the "successor" section on post-Kyoto agreements.

(1) The issue of recommending policy I think is inappropriate. There are a very large number of policy proposals on climate change, put across by governments, NGOs and academic analyses (see Gupta et al 2007). I see no reason for the recommendations of this group of academics to have priority of any other of the analyses by other groups. As I stated earlier, I think that newspapers are no judge of quality or notability. I also do not see why their support for a particular climate policy deserves mention over the policy suggestions made by national governments or regional bodies, e.g., the Copenhagen Accord, the G8's 2 degrees C policy objective, the views of developing countries, vulnerable nations etc.

(1 and 2) On the issue of the the "failure" of Copenhagen, this is an opinion that needs balancing. Frankly I don't see why Copenhagen should be mentioned in a section that is entitled "views on the Kyoto Protocol". Copenhagen did not agree on any second round Kyoto commitments. It is therefore difficult for me to see how Copenhagen is relevant to this section. Enescot (talk) 08:06, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Mariordo's reply - I will be brief:

Also I would like to hear other opinions, but I am removing the repeated and unnecessary tags and leaving the others until more regulars give us their take.--Mariordo (talk) 17:23, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
 * This paper was produced by academics and practitioners from several fields, under a collaboration of the Mckinder Programme of the Study of Long Wave Events (London School of Economics) and the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (Oxford University). Among the authors is Mike Hulme, from the School of Envrironmental Sciences, University of East Anglia (yes, the same involved in Climategate and some of the hacked e-mails are from him) and he is founding Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. Also Roger A. Pielke, Jr., professor in the Environmental Studies Program and a Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Therefore, these guys have sufficient credentials and expertise to have credibility (and they are not "deniers"), and proof of it is that The Economist, Science (Journal), BBC News, and the New York Times among others provided coverage and criticism to their paper. There has been already enough notability to merit the inclusion of the Hartwell Paper.
 * I believe you are confusing the nature of the paper, it is about policy not about science . In fact, your tag requesting "opinion needs balancing" is absolutely ridiculous, you are questioning the paper content itself, when clearly it is their opinion (right or wrong, whether you agree or not) as already stated. The Hartwell paper is proposing a different approach, and do not agree with the Kyoto approach, that's it. And because it is an alternative proposal beyond than simply criticizing Kyoto (which they do), it properly belongs to the view section. As for balance, NPOV mandates we have other points of view, and this article is about Kyoto, and the Hartwell paper precisely offers other POV from a view of experts who believe another policies should be pursued given their perceived failure of Copenhagen (though most commentators agree it was a failure).
 * If an article about the Hartwell paper gets created (I do not think there is enough notability yet for a full article), this eventual article would be the place to included reactions and criticisms to the paper. If you do it here (the sources I already provided include some) then you will have to extend the discussion in the Kyoto article, which I believe it is not appropriate as it would give undue balance to the Hartwell paper as compared to the other views already presented in the section.


 * I will be briefer. There is a page called 'Views on the Kyoto Protocol'. The Hartwell paper is just another policy critique of the Kyoto Protocol. The most substantive description of it should be on that page where it can be read alongside the many other perspectives on the KP. Given there is a page 'Views on the Kyoto Protocol', some care is needed on deciding what is summarised on the the main KP page to avoid undue weight. So, I agree with Enescot's original action in moving the bulk of the material to 'Views on the Kyoto Protocol' and in my opinion his edit should not have been reverted. Mrfebruary (talk) 12:56, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Restored thread
I've restored this thread because another editor removed the "undue weight" template and "unbalanced opinion" tag from the relevant paragraph. In my opinion, use of the tag and template is justified, and I've restored them.

So long as the template and tag remain in the article, I think this thread should remain open for discussion. I'll try and remember to stop the thread being automatically archived by User:MiszaBot I. Enescot (talk) 13:23, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Canada's withdrawal
I've removed the following section and summarized its contents for this article. A longer summary is contained in Kyoto Protocol and government action:


 * Canada's environment minister, Peter Kent, informed a day after the 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference that Canada will withdraw from the Kyoto accord. Canada’s protocol target was to cut emissions 6% by 2012 on 1990 levels, but emissions have risen by a third (over 30 %). Options were to buy carbon credits, face Kyoto sanctions or quit the accord, as Canada did. Kent said that the carbon emission permits would have cost £8.7bn for the taxpayers.[43] Canada's high emissions were in part due to the lucrative and highly polluting tar sands.[44]


 * James Hansen demands that the US and Canadian governments must agree that the unconventional fossil fuels, tar sands and tar shale, will not be developed.[45]


 * Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Christiana Figueres demanded Canada to reduce its climate gas emissions regardless the partnership in the protocol. She said: Canada has the legal obligation to comply the UN climate regulations.[46]

In my opinion, the section is too long for the article and lacks objectivity. I don't think Canada deserves special attention compared to the other Kyoto Parties. My summary is contained in the section on "Annex I Parties with targets:"


 * The emissions reductions in the early nineties by the 12 EIT countries who have since joined the EU, assist the present EU-27 in meeting its collective Kyoto target.[48]:25 At the end of 2010, the EU-15 was on track to achieve its Kyoto target, but three EU-15 Member States (Austria, Italy and Luxembourg) were not on track to meet their burden-sharing targets.[49]:8 Other countries not on course to meet their Kyoto target include Liechtenstein,[49]:8 Switzerland,[49]:8 Australia, Canada (see below), New Zealand and Spain.[48]:25 In order to meet their targets, these countries would need to purchase emissions credits from other Kyoto countries.[48]:25 As noted in the section on Intergovernmental Emissions Trading, purchasing surplus credits from the EIT countries would not actually result in total emissions being reduced. An alternative would be the purchase of CDM credits or the use of the Green Investment Scheme.


 * Canada's environment minister, Peter Kent, informed a day after the 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference that Canada will withdraw from the Kyoto accord.

In my longer summary in Kyoto Protocol and government action, I've removed mention of Hansen's views:


 * James Hansen demands that the US and Canadian governments must agree that the unconventional fossil fuels, tar sands and tar shale, will not be developed.[45]

In the cited source, Hansen is not commenting specifically on the Kyoto treaty, nor on Canada's withdrawal Enescot (talk) 15:18, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: The Hansen source I refer to above is, and does not refer to Canada's withdrawal from the Kyoto treaty (it was written in 2009). Enescot (talk) 15:24, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

11.12.17 map colors
I replaced the map in the intro because of the biased color scheme (see Talk:Kyoto Protocol). I'd prefer a greyscale map since this might be better for printouts or people with color-blindness. However, I haven't worked out how to do this yet. Enescot (talk) 15:20, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I think this new version is no improvement at all, is much less legible with less distinction between the colours, and can't see how it is supposedly less "biased". If is claimed that red and green have symbolic meaning than blue and brown equally have. Blue in maps is read as water, brown is close to grey. Furthermore I don't see why a suggested 1960s style greyscale map would be desirable. --Elekhh (talk) 23:20, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * As I argued in a previous thread (Talk:Kyoto Protocol), I interpret red as a sign of disapproval, and green as a sign of approval. Another editor has pointed out that the maps may be difficult to read for those with color blindness (Talk:Kyoto Protocol). In my opinion, a black and white map which uses patterns and shading would be the most obvious solution. To repeat my earlier point, a black and white map might also be more useful for people who do not own a color printer.


 * There might be some confusion in using blue for the countries if the ocean was also blue, but seeing as it isn't, I don't see what the problem is. As for grey being close to brown, I agree that having the greatest level of contrast between the colors is desirable. Personally I think that the contrast between blue, brown and grey is acceptable, but I would be happy for different set of colors to be used. Enescot (talk) 16:08, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see any bias in red for disapproval and green for approval, quite the contrary: that's what the map represents (members and non-members). Colour maps get printed very well on B/W printers as greyscale, and I don't think you are really suggesting changing all Wikipedia to B/W? In the previous version the two colours dark-red vs light-green were distinct enough IMO for the B/W viewers, and if not, one could simply further enhance the brightness/darkness of each. --Elekhh (talk) 22:54, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
 * You haven't mention the issue of reading the map for those with color blindness. I don't know if my replacement map is any better in this respect, and that's why I'd prefer a black and white map. If colors are to be used, I don't see why they have to be red and green. Enescot (talk) 12:23, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually I addressed that, as I wrote above that contrasting levels of brightness can be used ("dark-red vs light-green"). The purpose of a map is to communicate information quickly and efficiently, and the green-red (pro - contra) combination in this instance does the job the best IMO. In terms of testing colour-blindness usability, you can simply convert the images into grey-scale. In your version the light-blue and light-brown become the same level of grey. Also note that there are specific management solutions through computer software (see Color blindness). In any case I don't see the advantage of depriving 95% of (non-colour blind) readers from the benefits of colours. If green is so unacceptable, an alternative I can imagine is using blue instead (for signatory countries as light blue = colour of UN), and keep US/CAN in dark red. --Elekhh (talk) 06:14, 29 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree that my version is unsatisfactory when converted to grey. However, this also applies to the previous red/green version, where the shade for Canada is almost identical to the shade used for the Annex I Kyoto Parties. For this reason, I'm not convinced that color versions of this map are suitable for greyscale printers.


 * Since I haven't been able to produce a greyscale version of this map, I'd be happy to switch the colors of the existing map. I'm happy with using light blue for the Kyoto Parties, but I'd prefer a more neutral color than red to be used for the US/Canada (perhaps a dark blue or dark green?). I'm also assuming that you'd apply different colors for the US and Canada? Enescot (talk) 13:29, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

IPCC citations
I'm thinking of changing the IPCC citations in this article. A description of the change I intend to make is on Talk:Effects of global warming, and more detailed info is available on Talk:Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change/citation. Basically the change would make it quicker and easier to cite the IPCC reports, since a lot of repetitive information contained in the citations would be removed. I'd probably make the changes gradually, and not change all the IPCC citations at once. Enescot (talk) 15:04, 26 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Good idea. It will make the citations easier to read. Mrfebruary (talk) 03:07, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Common but differentiated responsibility
I've removed the following section:


 * The notion of “common but differentiated responsibilities”, which was written down in Article 3 of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is the key principle of the Kyoto Protocol. According to the article, the Parties recognized the direct responsibility of developed countries in global climate change as well as the “special needs and special circumstances of developing countries” with the emphasis on sustainable development[62].


 * In general, the parties agreed that:


 * the largest share of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases originated in developed countries;
 * per capita emissions in developing countries are still relatively low;
 * the share of global emissions originating in developing countries will grow to meet social and development needs.[63]


 * The principle, which put the emphasis on the leading role of developed countries, can be increasingly less relevant as global context is changing. According to International Energy Agency (IEA) 2011 statistics, starting from 2008, carbon emissions from non-Annex I countries have surpassed those of Annex I countries. By 2009, while CO2 emissions from Annex I countries were back at 1990 levels, those from non-Annex I countries kept growing[64]. Therefore, to make the regime work successfully, emission reductions from developing countries such as China and India needs to be well considered and included as well.[65].

The first part is mostly repeated later on in the Kyoto Protocol section. The second part which presents an analysis of the Kyoto Protocol (Baylis et al) was written in a biased fashion. Analyses of the treaty should be presented in an objective fashion and clearly attributed to a particular commentator. It is inappropriate to present opinions about the treaty (in this case the appropriateness of future emissions reductions by China and India) as objective facts. This article should be completely neutral as regards to the design of the treaty.

However, the effectiveness of the Kyoto treaty is an important issue, but I feel that it is appropriately covered in other sections of the article. For example, the Kyoto Protocol section mentions the World Bank's commentary on increasing emissions levels in spite of Kyoto, as well as the refusal of the US and Australia (under John Howard) to participate. The Bush Administration's position is also mentioned in the section Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol section mentions non-Annex I Parties whose emissions have increased most rapidly in recent years.

The need for stronger developed/developing country action is mentioned in the Kyoto Protocol section. Note that the UNFCCC has agreed to the 2 degrees C target, and has also formally recognized that existing policies are insufficient to meet this target.

I've rewritten Baylis et al's analysis and moved it to Views on the Kyoto Protocol:


 * Baylis et al argue that a successful international climate policy would require additional emission reductions from developing countries such as China and India.

Enescot (talk) 03:15, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Emissions
I've removed the following section on "emissions":


 * Per-capita emissions are a country's total emissions divided by its population (Banuri et al.., 1996, p. 95).[62] Per-capita emissions in the industrialized countries are typically as much as ten times the average in developing countries (Grubb, 2003, p. 144).[63] This is one reason industrialized countries accepted responsibility for leading climate change efforts in the Kyoto negotiations. In Kyoto, the countries that took on quantified commitments for the first period (2008–12) corresponded roughly to those with per-capita emissions in 1990 of two tonnes of carbon or higher. In 2005, the top-20 emitters comprised 80% of total GHG emissions (PBL, 2010. See also the notes in the following section on the top-ten emitters in 2005).[64] Countries with a Kyoto target made up 20% of total GHG emissions.


 * Another way of measuring GHG emissions is to measure the total emissions that have accumulated in the atmosphere over time (IEA, 2007, p. 199).[65] Over a long time period, cumulative emissions provide an indication of a country's total contribution to GHG concentrations in the atmosphere. The International Energy Agency (IEA, 2007, p. 201) compared cumulative energy-related CO2 emissions for several countries and regions.[65] Over the time period 1900–2005, the US accounted for 30% of total cumulative emissions; the EU, 23%; China, 8%; Japan, 4%; and India, 2%. The rest of the world accounted for 33% of global, cumulative, energy-related CO2 emissions.


 * Top ten emitters


 * What follows is a ranking of the world's top ten emitters of GHGs for 2005 [...]

More up-to-date information on emissions is contained in greenhouse gas. I've revised the section on Kyoto Protocol to refer to the relevant sections of greenhouse gas. I've moved PBL's implied commentary on the limited scope of the Kyoto 1st round caps to Kyoto Protocol. PBL's commentary is now explicitly attributed to Gupta et al (2007). Enescot (talk) 05:12, 31 August 2012 (UTC)