What happens to the Kyoto Protocol?
Underlying the entire debate is the procedural but critical question: What will happen to Kyoto? Small island nations and other poor countries are loath to release their hold on the 12-year-old treaty, which the United States never ratified. They are insisting upon developing a second commitment period for Kyoto and designing a new agreement for America and other countries that were not part of the original treaty. So far, they argue, it’s the only legally binding instrument that exists to force countries to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “The killing of the Kyoto Protocol will mean the killing of Africa,” said Mama Konate, the national meteorological director from Mali and a member of the West African country’s negotiating team. American and European leaders, meanwhile, continue to argue that Kyoto is insufficient. Because it doesn’t require enough of fast-developing countries, they say, it will not deliver the reductions needed to keep global temperatures below a 2-degree-
