Making the Kyoto Protocol work

The Kyoto Protocol is the concrete mechanism for implementing the UN Climate Change Convention, which called for a 5 percent cut in greenhouse-gas emissions over a decade. But the Protocol could not enter into force until it was ratified by 55 countries that, between them, accounted for 55 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions from the so-called Annex 1 countries (industrialized countries and those with economies in transition) in 1990.

The Kyoto meeting left much undone. The details remained to be thrashed out by further Conferences of the Parties (COPs). COP-7 took place in Marrakesh. Previous Conferences had dealt with much of the detail, and 40 countries had so far ratified, but only one, Romania, was an Annex 1 country.

So the 55 percent target remained remote, and there was a risk that the Protocol would simply wither away. Moreover, the United States had already said that it did not intend to ratify. So to reach the target, virtually all the rest of the industrialized world would have to be on board. Most were; but Japan and Russia were still not happy with some aspects of the Protocol.

Return to main article Food and fuel in a warmer world

At Marrakesh the assent of these two countries was secured, chiefly through two detail agreements. One was on the Flexible Mechanisms - the ways in which countries are deemed to have met their emissions targets. This defined the extent to which forests and agriculture could be taken as sequestering carbon (see main article), and set against a country's emissions.

The other was on the Clean Development Mechanism, under which industrialized countries will be able to cancel out some of their emissions by funding climate-friendly projects in the developing world. These can include agricultural development and sustainable forestry projects that increase carbon sequestration, and the use of biofuels and other renewable energies to replace fossil fuels.

FAO is now mobilizing its interdisciplinary expertise to exploit the new opportunities the clean development mechanism offers for sustainable agricultural and forestry development. It is chance that poor, mainly rural countries cannot afford to miss.