The Kyoto Protocol is an agreement signed by 137 countries to reduce greenhouse gases. However countries have to ratify the agreement before it becomes binding. For instance the USA has signed the Kyoto Protocol but has not ratified and is therefore under no obligation to comply with their reduction target. Each country has their own targets to reduce greenhouse gases with the average target being 5.2% below 1990 levels by 2012.

The Kyoto Protocol is the product of ten years of negotiations and comes out of the process that was started by the signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This original framework was agreed upon at the first Earth Summit in 1992. The Kyoto Protocol was agreed in 1997 in Japan. Not only does the Protocol set out committments to reductions but also the methods by which they can be achieved. Since 1997 most of the negotiations have centred around these methods, defined as the 'Flexible Mechanisms'. These are the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), Joint Implementation (JI) and Emissions Trading (ET).

The Kyoto Protocol
IPCC reports
The UNFCCC secretariat

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