The Kyoto Protocol specifically relates to which one among the following issues?

Correct — A, Emission reduction. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted at Kyoto on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. It is not a free-standing treaty but the operational arm of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change: where the 1992 Convention asked countries to stabilise greenhouse-gas concentrations without saying by how much, the Protocol turned that into binding, quantified targets for named industrialised countries and economies in transition. In its first commitment period, 2008 to 2012, thirty-seven industrialised countries and the European Community accepted targets averaging a five per cent cut against 1990 levels; the Doha Amendment of 2012 set a second period, 2013 to 2020, aiming at a cut of at least eighteen per cent below 1990. The gases covered are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride, with nitrogen trifluoride added in the second period, and three market mechanisms — international emissions trading, the Clean Development Mechanism and joint implementation — were created to let countries meet the targets at lower cost. Every one of those features is about the reduction of emissions. The Protocol drew the developed-versus-developing line from the Convention's principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, so India, as a non-Annex I party, took on no emission-reduction target but hosted a large share of the Clean Development Mechanism projects.

• (b)Ozone layer depletion — That is the Montreal Protocol of 1987, made under the Vienna Convention of 1985 — a separate treaty family altogether. Confusing the two is the single most common error on this topic, and UPSC has tested it directly.
• (c)Chlorofluorocarbons — CFCs are controlled by the Montreal Protocol because they destroy stratospheric ozone. The Kyoto basket contains their substitutes, the hydrofluorocarbons, which do not harm ozone but are potent greenhouse gases.
• (d)Biodiversity management — Biodiversity belongs to the Convention on Biological Diversity of 1992, with the Cartagena Protocol on living modified organisms and the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit sharing under it. The Kyoto Protocol says nothing about species or habitats.

The climate regime is built in three storeys. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, agreed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, sets the objective and the principles but no numbers. The Kyoto Protocol of 1997 adds binding quantified emission limitation and reduction commitments for the industrialised parties listed in its Annex B, together with three flexibility mechanisms for meeting them. The Paris Agreement of 2015 replaces that architecture with nationally determined contributions from every party, and the Kyoto Protocol's second commitment period ended on 31 December 2020.

Environmental treaties are examined mostly by testing whether you can attach the right problem to the right instrument, and the stems are deliberately short. Build the map once and these items become free. Ozone and the substances that destroy it go with Vienna and Montreal; greenhouse gases and warming go with the Framework Convention, Kyoto and Paris; species, habitats, biosafety and benefit sharing go with the Convention on Biological Diversity and its two protocols; hazardous waste goes with Basel; persistent organic pollutants with Stockholm; wetlands with Ramsar; desertification with the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. The Kigali Amendment of 2016 is the one deliberate crossing point: it sits inside the Montreal Protocol, an ozone treaty, but controls hydrofluorocarbons, which harm the climate and not the ozone layer. Note also that the Protocol's status has moved since this paper's era — the second commitment period closed at the end of 2020 and the Paris Agreement now carries the regime, so speak of Kyoto in the past tense.

• The Kyoto Protocol was adopted on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005; it has 192 parties.
• First commitment period 2008 to 2012: thirty-seven industrialised countries and the European Community, averaging a five per cent reduction against 1990 levels.
• The Doha Amendment of 2012 created a second commitment period, 2013 to 2020, targeting a cut of at least eighteen per cent below 1990 levels.
• Its three market mechanisms are international emissions trading, the Clean Development Mechanism and joint implementation.
• India ratified the Protocol as a non-Annex I party, taking on no reduction target but hosting a large share of Clean Development Mechanism projects.
• Ozone depletion and chlorofluorocarbons are governed by the Vienna Convention of 1985 and the Montreal Protocol of 1987, an entirely separate regime.
• The second commitment period ended on 31 December 2020, and the Paris Agreement of 2015 now carries the international climate effort.

• Pairing Kyoto with the ozone layer. UPSC has set exactly this trap, and the ozone treaty is Montreal.
• Assuming chlorofluorocarbons are a Kyoto gas; the Kyoto basket contains their substitutes, the hydrofluorocarbons.
• Treating the Kyoto Protocol as still the operative instrument. Its second commitment period ended on 31 December 2020.
• Mixing up the year of adoption, 1997, with the year of entry into force, 2005.

Usually as a one-line treaty-to-issue match like this one, or as statements about the year of entry into force and what the Protocol covers, or through the Clean Development Mechanism and carbon credits.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Clean Development Mechanism is a flexibility mechanism established under which one of the following?

  • (a)The Montreal Protocol
  • (b)The Kyoto Protocol
  • (c)The Convention on Biological Diversity
  • (d)The Basel Convention

  Answer(b) The Kyoto Protocol — along with international emissions trading and joint implementation, it was created to let parties meet their emission targets at lower cost.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Kyoto Protocol entered into force in which year?

  • (a)1997
  • (b)2001
  • (c)2005
  • (d)2012

  Answer(c) 2005 — it was adopted at Kyoto on 11 December 1997 but entered into force only on 16 February 2005.