In the final moments of a two-week conference in Morocco in early November negotiators from 165 countries managed to reach agreement on hard fought rules for implementing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which calls on about 40 industrialised nations to limit carbon emissions or cut them to pre-1990 levels. Agreement on the Marrakech rules has cleared the way for the treaty to be ratified and become binding law for its signatories, probably some time during next year.
The notable exception among the signatories will be the USA, although the protocol mechanisms were designed by American negotiators under Clinton, which has rejected the accord because implementation would harm the US economy, and labelled it unfair because it excuses heavily polluting developing countries like China and India from any obligation. The official White House line is that president Bush has taken note of the rules agreed on in Morocco, agrees with the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but intends the USA to take independent action along lines that will not force the country into deep recession.
The Protocol sets tough targets. Japan, for example, whose emissions have increased by 17 per cent since 1990, has agreed to a cut of 6 per cent on the 1990 figure. To make such tough targets easier, the rules sanction the trading of emissions and allows for the establishing of credits by forest and farmland management (‘carbon sinks’) and by helping developing countries avoid emissions.
