Statement Of Dr. Michael Oppenheimer Chief Scientist, Environmental Defense

The Kyoto Protocol was added to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (signed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero in 1992) because most countries, particularly the US, were failing to meet their Rio commitments. The very basis of the Kyoto Protocol is that its obligations were intended to be binding. The key reason why the Rio agreement failed was that obligations were described as voluntary rather than binding. Potential for success under the Kyoto protocol depends on its obligations being binding. Equally important, these obligations were expressed explicitly in terms of absolute caps on emissions; they were not expressed in terms of level-of-effort, financial or otherwise.

Language in the current text would turn the basic obligation to limit emissions into an obligation to merely put in a “level of effort” denominated in dollars., which would allow a Party to avoid binding consequences for non-compliance. Rather than compel Parties to remedy non-compliance with carbon cuts sufficient to fully compensate for excess emissions, the result of the proposed “compliance fund” could be a pay-to-pollute approach wherein non-complying Parties would pay a limited amount into a fund to buy their way out of commitments. There would be no absolute obligation to ever restore carbon levels in the atmosphere to the Protocol’s required levels, whether by directly reducing national emissions, adopting prescribed compliance action plans, using a financial mechanism that reduces emissions, or any other means to reduce emissions.

The result would be rampant non-compliance, failure to meet Kyoto obligations, and ultimately, the failure of the Protocol. In short, this would be a stealth re-negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol. Yet there is no evidence that this approach would further the likelihood of ratification.