Global climate change is a topic that makes it to political agendas world-wide. A climax in the debate of reduction on emissions was the adoption of the Kyoto protocol in 11 December 1997. To date, 187 states ratified the protocol. In sum the emission of certain types of (greenhouse) gases will be reduced by 5,2% compared to the base year 1990. The EU-15 ratified on 31 May 2002 and aggregates 8% for reduction of emissions. As seen in the figure this reduction is internally pooled among the EU-15 member states, where Luxembourg has to reduce its emissions with 28% and Portugal is allowed to increase its emissions with 27% compared to the base year.
How to achieve reductions
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EU-15: % Reduction commitment for 2012
compared to base year 1990 |
There is a plurality of ways to achieve the reductions that follow from the Kyoto protocol. Most pollution is a byproduct of energizing technical processes in industries, transportation and residential homes. This makes that the production of energy should be included when looking at ways to reduce emissions. We recognize two focus areas: Renewable Energy and Energy-efficiency. First, less pollution can be achieved by promoting technologies that potentially decrease current pollution levels (or are a less polluting alternative to contemporary technologies) and decrease the motivation to use technologies that are highly polluting. This includes the promotion of a transition to electricity production using renewable energy sources. Second, less energy usage can be achieved by promoting technologies that potentially decrease current energy usage (or are a less energy consuming alternative compared to contemporary technologies) and decrease the motivation to use technologies that are highly energy consuming. It has to be said that demotivating the use of technologies that either pollute more or consume more energy, is a less appealing policy, since the increasing costs of domestic production has consequences for international trade. Besides these two domestic policies, the Kyoto protocol leaves way to governments to trade-off their level of emissions. This option leaves the actual emission level of a state unchanged at the status quo, on the condition that another state equals up for the difference.
