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From Kyoto to The G8 - A WWF Climate Change Briefing

May 14th, 1998

Air pollution in Finland

As world leaders meet in Birmingham for the G8 Summit, THE WWF Climate Change Campaign is urging the G8 leaders to instruct their ministers to impose stringent caps on the trading of greenhouse gases.

In the weeks building up to the Summit there have been a series of behind-the-scenes meetings in attempts to put in place an emissions trading system involving the allocation of permits to those countries below their emissions targets, enabling them to emit a specified quantity of greenhouse gases over a certain period and to sell their spare or surplus emissions.

Currently Russia and Ukraine are the two key players as they have excess emissions to sell, with Japan, the US and Canada lining up to buy. There has been a 20% reduction in carbon dioxide in the former Soviet Bloc since 1990, due to the economic collapse rather than any efforts at reducing greenhouse gases.

The conclusions of the Kyoto Summit were that the industrialised countries, known as Annex 1, were to bring their collective greenhouse gas emissions down by at least 5% below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. That is a considerably weaker target  than is necessary to avoid the risk of dangerous climate change, and disappointing in the wake of the EU's original proposal of 15% reductions by 2010. The Protocol was meant to put in place legally binding targets and timetables for industrialised countries to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases.

The industrialised countries have been identified as those who should take the lead in climate change policy.  This is because the largest share of emissions historically and today, originate in the industrialised countries, and many of those nations created their wealth through climate pollution before the consequences were understood.  Therefore, commitments for developing countries were specifically excluded from the framework convention.

How much Russia is allowed to trade will largely determine the success or ultimate failure of the Kyoto Protocol.But if the emissions target for Russia is not strengthened before any trading system is put in place, there will be little chance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions either in Russia itself or in any of the purchasing countries, such as the United States and Japan, who should be working towards reducing their dependency on fossil fuels.

It was at  last December's climate summit in Kyoto, Japan  that a legally binding international agreement to limit  greenhouse gas emissions emerged.  However, many loopholes exist in the new treaty and it could take several more of negotiations before the rules and regulations of the issues put forwarded in Kyoto are environmentally sound, agreed by all the countries and ratified.

Dying trees near Norilsk in the Russian Taimyr

Emissions trading has always been one of the most problematic issues covered by the Protocol and was included at the insistence of the US. It is still unclear which greenhouse gases will be included in any trading system and whether or not carbon sequestration from forests will form part of trading. 


The G8 Summit  presents a unique opportunity for the OECD countries to start closing the loopholes that were left at open at Kyoto. However, it is beginning to look as though G8 members are rushing headlong into establishing a trading system with few rules and the creation of opportunities for cartels. 

For Further Information contact:
Gisele McAuliffe in Washington, DC at +202 861 8369, or
Andrew Kerr in Amsterdam at +31 20 676 9058, or
Ute Collier in London at +44 370 945 233 (mobile phone)