Electronics and the Kyoto Protocol
Kyoto may have been a short circuit in the right direction.
What does it mean to electronics? Probably not as much as you think.
Since most electronics are produced in Asia, the Kyoto Protocol can affect the cost of equipment we buy. Countries that must reduce emissions may see manufacturing costs rise, such as Japan. But it’s more likely that as long as Kyoto has any life left at all we’ll just see more creative shuffling of facilities to the third world.
You’ve probably heard a lot about the Kyoto Accord or Kyoto Protocol, but most people don’t really know what it is or what it’s intended to do. Here’s a brief effort to explain Kyoto in the most apolitical manner I can muster.
An agreement made under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (Ratification of which commits a country to reduce its emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases, or to engage in emissions trading to offset the difference if they maintain or increase emissions. It’s intended to prevent gases released as a result of human activities from playing havoc with the world’s climate.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) predicts a rise in the average global temperature of 1.4°C (2.5°F) to 5.8°C (10.4°F) between 1990 and 2100. For the sake of comparison, the current average global temperature is around 15°C(59°F) and the last Ice Age included an average global temperature of between 5°C and 10°C (41°F to 50°F).
A total of 163 countries have ratified the agreement. Two major developed nations which have not ratified the Kyoto Accord are the United States and Australia. Meanwhile other countries, including India and China, are not required to reduce carbon emissions under the present agreement, despite having ratified it.
The goal of the Kyoto Protocol is for industrialized nations to reduce their collective emissions of greenhouse gasesto 5.2% below 1990 levels. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, methane, oxides of nitrogen, sulfur hexafluoride, HFCs and PFCs.
The reductions (below 1990 levels) would have included 7% for the US, 8% for the EU, 6% for Japan (already among the lowest polluters for industrial nations), 0% for Russia, and an 8% increase for Australia and 10% increase for Iceland.
Each participant country agreed to limit emissions to the described levels, but numerous countries were assigned levels higher than their current production. Essentially, these increased values can be purchased on the open market, allowing larger polluters to pay up rather than clean up.
Critics of Kyoto argue that allowing increases anywhere is counterproductive - but the pro-Kyoto argument is that it is unfair to expect nations who have not yet achieved the level of industrialization and energy use present in the West to simply forego this development. Similarly, since the US alone contributes 30% of the problem with only 5% of the world’s population, many feel that an even larger reduction on America’s part would make sense.
Under the Kyoto scheme, a nation is also credited for "carbon sinks" such as forests or other plant systems that sequester carbon dioxide away from the atmosphere. By doing this, nations such as Canada and the US (who have massive amounts of forest) would receive incentives towards sustainable forestry management.
The planned reductions in CO2 emissions should be achieved through measures like efficiency programs [link to Energy Star US], solar power [link to Solar-Powered Cell Phone] and other renewable energy initiatives, [link to Green-e] as well as other technological innovations and adjustments in the way that the people of both industrial and developing nations use energy and resources.
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