Copenhagen

What is Kyoto Protocol?

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialised countries and the European Community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

These amount to an average of 5 per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012.

Emission limits do not include emissions by international aviation and shipping, but are in addition to the industrial gases, chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs.

The Protocol was initially adopted on December 11, 1997 in Kyoto, Japan. As of November 2009, 187 states have signed and ratified the protocol.

The most notable non-member of the Protocol is the United States, which was responsible for 36.1 per cent of the 1990 emission levels.

Image: People demonstrate against the US refusal to ratify the Koyoto protocol outside US consulate in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Photographs: Debbie Yazbek/Reuters

Of greenhouse gases and global warming

Greenhouse gases are gases in an atmosphere that absorb and emit radiation. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The main greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.

In our solar system, the atmospheres of Venus, Mars and Titan (a satellite of Saturn) also contain gases that cause greenhouse effects. Greenhouse gases greatly affect the temperature of the Earth; without them, Earth's surface would be on average about 33 degree centigrade (59 degree Fahrenheit) colder than at present.

Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century.

Global surface temperature increased 0.74 0.18 degree centigrade (1.33 0.32 degree fahrenheit) between the start and the end of the 20th century.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change...