The European Union will ratify the Doha amendment to the Kyoto Protocol before the end of the year, announced Estonian President of the Environment Council Siim Kissler and Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete at the COP23 on Thursday 16 November, giving assurance that the EU will meet its key pre-2020 climate action commitments – a matter of major importance for developing countries and one of the difficult points in the negotiations in Bonn.
The amendment, which establishes the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (from 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2020), is of huge importance in putting the world on track for meeting the targets of the Paris climate agreement. The commitments are only those of the industrialised counties that are parties to the Kyoto Protocol. The amendment contains a provision that makes it possible to automatically amend a party’s target to prevent an increase in its emissions over the 2013-2020 period greater than its emissions in the 2008-2010 period.
“I am pleased to announce that EU and its member states will ratify the Doha amendment to the Kyoto Protocol later this year”, said Kiisler on behalf of the EU at a high-level event on the loss and damage suffered by small island states (see other article).
Under the terms of the Doha amendment, the EU and its member states, on the one hand, and Iceland, on the other, pledge jointly to limit their average annual greenhouse gas emissions to 80% of the emissions level in their respective reference years (1990 for most countries).
The previous day, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres hailed Belgium, Sweden, Germany and Spain as the latest countries to ratify the amendment and called on all countries yet to do so to complete the procedure swiftly. The Kyoto Protocol will celebrate its 20th anniversary next month, he pointed out.
To date, 88 parties have accepted the amendment. To bring it into force requires 144 of the 192 parties to the Kyoto Protocol to ratify it. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)