IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/tcpoxx/v16y2016i6p768-782.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Compliance of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in the first commitment period

Author

Listed:
  • Igor Shishlov
  • Romain Morel
  • Valentin Bellassen

Abstract

This article provides an ex post analysis of the compliance of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol during the first commitment period (2008–2012) based on the final data for national GHG emissions and exchanges in carbon units that became available at the end of 2015. On the domestic level, among the 36 countries that fully participated in the Kyoto Protocol, only nine countries emitted higher levels of GHGs than committed and therefore had to resort to flexibility mechanisms. On the international level – i.e. after the use of flexibility mechanisms – all Annex B Parties are in compliance. Countries implemented different compliance strategies: purchasing carbon units abroad, stimulating the domestic use of carbon credits by the private sector and incentivizing domestic emission reductions through climate policies.Overall, the countries party to the Protocol surpassed their aggregate commitment by an average 2.4 GtCO2e yr–1. Of the possible explanations for this overachievement, ‘hot-air’ was estimated at 2.2 GtCO2e yr–1, while accounting rules for land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) further removed 0.4 GtCO2e yr–1 from the net result excluding LULUCF. The hypothetical participation of the US and Canada would have reduced this overachievement by a net 1 GtCO2e yr–1. None of these factors – some of which may be deemed illegitimate – would therefore on its own have led to global non-compliance, even without use of the 0.3 GtCO2e of annual emissions reductions generated by the Clean Development Mechanism. The impact of domestic policies and ‘carbon leakage’ – neither of which is quantitatively assessed here – should not be neglected either.Policy relevanceGiven the ongoing evolution of the international climate regime and the adoption of the Paris Agreement in December 2015, we believe that there is a need to evaluate the results of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. To our knowledge there has been no overarching quantitative ex post assessment of the Kyoto Protocol based on the final emissions data for 2008–2012, which became available in late 2015. This article attempts to fill this gap, focusing on the domestic and international compliance of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in the first commitment period.

Suggested Citation

  • Igor Shishlov & Romain Morel & Valentin Bellassen, 2016. "Compliance of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in the first commitment period," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(6), pages 768-782, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:tcpoxx:v:16:y:2016:i:6:p:768-782
    DOI: 10.1080/14693062.2016.1164658
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14693062.2016.1164658
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/14693062.2016.1164658?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oliver Sartor, 2012. "Carbon Leakage in the Primary Aluminium Sector," Working Papers hal-00776451, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cemal Atici, 2022. "Reconciling the flexibility mechanisms of climate policies towards the inclusiveness of developing countries: commitments and prospects," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(7), pages 9048-9067, July.
    2. Lewis C. King & Jeroen C. J. M. Bergh, 2021. "Potential carbon leakage under the Paris Agreement," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 165(3), pages 1-19, April.
    3. Liddle, Brantley & Parker, Steven & Hasanov, Fakhri, 2023. "Why has the OECD long-run GDP elasticity of economy-wide electricity demand declined? Because the electrification of energy services has saturated," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    4. Liddle, Brantley, 2023. "Is timing everything? Assessing the evidence on whether energy/electricity demand elasticities are time-varying," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    5. Neubäumer, Renate, 2022. "Die EU – Vorreiter im weltweiten Kampf gegen den Klimawandel?," IZA Standpunkte 103, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Olivier Rubin & Louise Munkholm, 2022. "Isomorphic dynamics in national action plans on antimicrobial resistance," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(2), pages 142-153, May.
    7. Joel A. Rosado Anastacio, 2018. "Usando el método de control sintético para analizar la efectividad del Protocolo de Kioto para reducir las emisiones de CO2, CH4 y N2O en Espana," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, vol. 21(2), pages 341-379, December.
    8. Torres-Brito, David Israel & Cruz-Aké, Salvador & Venegas-Martínez, Francisco, 2023. "Impacto de los contaminantes por gases de efecto invernadero en el crecimiento económico en 86 países (1990-2019): Sobre la curva inversa de Kuznets [Impact of the Effect of Greenhouse Gas Pollutan," MPRA Paper 119031, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Narong Kiettikunwong, 2019. "The Green Bench: Can an environmental court protect natural resources in Thailand?," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 385-404, February.
    10. Stefano F. Verde & Simone Borghesi, 2022. "The International Dimension of the EU Emissions Trading System: Bringing the Pieces Together," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 83(1), pages 23-46, September.
    11. Joanna Depledge, 2022. "The “top-down” Kyoto Protocol? Exploring caricature and misrepresentation in literature on global climate change governance," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 673-692, December.
    12. Cary, Michael, 2023. "Climate policy boosts trade competitiveness: Evidence from timber trade networks," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    13. Jiazhe Sun & Kaizhong Yang, 2016. "The Wicked Problem of Climate Change: A New Approach Based on Social Mess and Fragmentation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(12), pages 1-14, December.
    14. Kuriyama, Akihisa & Abe, Naoya, 2018. "Ex-post assessment of the Kyoto Protocol – quantification of CO2 mitigation impact in both Annex B and non-Annex B countries-," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 286-295.
    15. Michael Quinlan, 2020. "Five challenges to humanity: Learning from pattern/repeat failures in past disasters?," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 31(3), pages 444-466, September.
    16. Cary, Michael & Stephens, Heather M., 2024. "Economic, environmental, and technical gains from the Kyoto Protocol: Evidence from cement manufacturing," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    17. Mohamad Issa & Adrian Ilinca & Daniel R. Rousse & Loïc Boulon & Philippe Groleau, 2023. "Renewable Energy and Decarbonization in the Canadian Mining Industry: Opportunities and Challenges," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-22, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Antimiani, Alessandro & Costantini, Valeria & Kuik, Onno & Paglialunga, Elena, 2016. "Mitigation of adverse effects on competitiveness and leakage of unilateral EU climate policy: An assessment of policy instruments," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 246-259.
    2. Naegele, Helene & Zaklan, Aleksandar, 2019. "Does the EU ETS cause carbon leakage in European manufacturing?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 125-147.
    3. Frédéric Branger & Oskar Lecuyer & Philippe Quirion, 2015. "The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme: should we throw the flagship out with the bathwater?," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(1), pages 9-16, January.
    4. Frédéric Branger & Oskar Lecuyer & Philippe Quirion, 2013. "The European Union Emissions Trading System : should we throw the flagship out with the bathwater ?," Working Papers hal-00866408, HAL.
    5. Branger, Frédéric & Quirion, Philippe, 2014. "Would border carbon adjustments prevent carbon leakage and heavy industry competitiveness losses? Insights from a meta-analysis of recent economic studies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 29-39.
    6. Mohamed Amine Boutabba & Sandrine Lardic, 2017. "Does European primary aluminum sector is exposed to carbon leakage? New insights from rolling analysis," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(1), pages 614-618.
    7. Francesco Bosello & Marinella Davide & Isabella Alloisio, 2016. "Economic Implications of EU Mitigation Policies: Domestic and International Effects," Working Papers 2016.34, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    8. Joltreau, Eugénie & Sommerfeld, Katrin, 2016. "Why does emissions trading under the EU ETS not affect firms' competitiveness? Empirical findings from the literature," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-062, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    9. Dechezleprêtre, Antoine & Gennaioli, Caterina & Martin, Ralf & Muûls, Mirabelle & Stoerk, Thomas, 2022. "Searching for carbon leaks in multinational companies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    10. Marianne Fay & Stephane Hallegatte & Adrien Vogt-Schilb & Julie Rozenberg & Ulf Narloch & Tom Kerr, 2015. "Decarbonizing Development," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 21842.
    11. Frédéric Branger, Philippe Quirion, Julien Chevallier, 2017. "Carbon Leakage and Competitiveness of Cement and Steel Industries Under the EU ETS: Much Ado About Nothing," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    12. Svetlana V. Doroshenko & Anna D. Mingaleva, 2020. "Carbon Exchanges: European Experience in Developing the Mechanism of Emission Permit Trading," Finansovyj žhurnal — Financial Journal, Financial Research Institute, Moscow 125375, Russia, issue 4, pages 52-68, August.
    13. Antoci, Angelo & Borghesi, Simone & Iannucci, Gianluca & Sodini, Mauro, 2021. "Should I stay or should I go? Carbon leakage and ETS in an evolutionary model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    14. Eskander, Shaikh & Fankhauser, Samuel, 2021. "The impact of climate legislation on trade-related carbon emissions, 1997–2017," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 111509, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Tan, Xiujie & Liu, Yu & Cui, Jingbo & Su, Bin, 2018. "Assessment of carbon leakage by channels: An approach combining CGE model and decomposition analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 535-545.
    16. Misato Sato & Karsten Neuhoff & Verena Graichen & Katja Schumacher & Felix Matthes, 2015. "Sectors Under Scrutiny: Evaluation of Indicators to Assess the Risk of Carbon Leakage in the UK and Germany," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 60(1), pages 99-124, January.
    17. Stefano F. Verde & Christoph Graf & Thijs Jong and Claudio Marcantonini, 2016. "Installation entries and exits in the EU ETS industrial sector," RSCAS Working Papers 2016/19, European University Institute.
    18. Sean Healy & Katja Schumacher & Wolfgang Eichhammer, 2018. "Analysis of Carbon Leakage under Phase III of the EU Emissions Trading System: Trading Patterns in the Cement and Aluminium Sectors," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-25, May.
    19. Sakai, Marco & Barrett, John, 2016. "Border carbon adjustments: Addressing emissions embodied in trade," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 102-110.
    20. Mohamed Amine Boutabba & Sandrine Lardic, 2017. "EU Emissions Trading Scheme, competitiveness and carbon leakage: new evidence from cement and steel industries," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 255(1), pages 47-61, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:tcpoxx:v:16:y:2016:i:6:p:768-782. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/tcpo20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.