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Glossary of summaries

Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted on 11 December 1997. It entered into force in 2005.

Under the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period (2008-2012), participating countries committed to reducing their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by an average of 5% compared with 1990 levels. The EU and its Member States — 15 at the time — committed to an 8% cut for the EU as a whole.

To bridge the gap between the end of the 1st Kyoto period in 2012 and the start of the new global agreement (the Paris Agreement) in 2020, an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol was adopted at the Doha climate change conference in December 2012.

In the second commitment period (2013-2020), participating countries agreed to reduce their GHG emissions by at least 18% below 1990 levels. The EU, its Member States and Iceland agreed to meet a 20% reduction target to be fulfilled jointly.

Under the Protocol, parties must meet their targets primarily through national measures. However, the Protocol also offered them 3 market-based mechanisms as additional ways to meet their targets.

The Kyoto mechanisms are:

  • emissions trading between parties which signed the Protocol;
  • joint implementation of projects by these parties;
  • the clean development mechanism (with parties that did not sign the Protocol).

Under the Protocol, parties’ actual emissions are monitored and precise records are kept of the trades carried out.

The Commission publishes an annual Progress Report which provides information about the progress made by the EU and its Member States towards meeting their GHG emission targets.

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