The Kyoto Protocol, when signed in 1997 at the historic city of Kyoto in Japan, had generated a lot of optimism in the world community's capacity to come together in addressing global issues. Here I have touched on three themes linked to the Protocol. The first piece looks at the importance of the Protocol to India and other developing countries. Though the protracted bargaining of operationalizing the Kyoto Protocol had generated a lot of angst and mirth, it still was hoped that this very important first step in reducing GHG emissions would none the less be undertaken. All this optimism was unraveled when President Bush categorically stated that they would not ratify the Protocol as it stood. Efforts are on to salvage the Protocol. In this context an official of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, India had declared that since the people who had the responsibility to address the issue were not bothered why should we. This reaction triggered the first piece. The second piece deals with the most important part of the Protocol for the developing countries namely, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The developed countries have tried to sell this as a part of their responsibility under the Convention to provide developing countries with new and additional financial resources as well as technology transfer. The piece argues that these two are very disparate issues. The CDM is about helping developed countries reduce their cost of reducing their GHG emissions, which they are doing in excess of their share. Whereas, the commitment regarding financial resources and transfer of technology is about transferring some of the surplus that the developed countries have accumulated over the years from excess use of a limited world community resource. The third piece touches upon the important issue of land use change and forestry as a sequestration option, to offset GHG emissions, under the CDM. Moura-Costa and Wilson (2000) proposed a method based on the radiative forcing of a unit of CO2 emission. This methodology misses out on an important aspect of lifetime of a unit of CO2 in atmosphere during which it is considered effective. The last piece presents the methodology for addressing this issue in calculating the equivalence between a unit of CO2 emitted and a time period for which a unit of CO2 need to be stored.
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