The Kyoto mechanisms
Under the Protocol, countries must meet their targets primarily through national measures. However,
the Protocol also offers them an additional means to meet their targets by way of three market-based
mechanisms.
The Kyoto mechanisms are:
The mechanisms help to stimulate green investment and help Parties meet their emission targets in a
cost-effective way.
Monitoring emission targets
Under the Protocol, countries' actual emissions have to be monitored and precise records have to
be kept of the trades carried out.
Registry systems track
and record transactions by Parties under the mechanisms. The UN Climate Change Secretariat, based in
Bonn, Germany, keeps an international transaction log to verify
that transactions are consistent with the rules of the Protocol.
Reporting is done by Parties by
submitting annual emission inventories and national reports under the Protocol at regular intervals.
A compliance system ensures
that Parties are meeting their commitments and helps them to meet their commitments if they have
problems doing so.
Adaptation The Kyoto Protocol, like the
Convention, is also designed to assist countries in adapting to the adverse effects of climate
change. It facilitates the development and deployment of technologies that can help increase
resilience to the impacts of climate change.
The Adaptation Fund was
established to finance adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries that are Parties to
the Kyoto Protocol. In the first commitment period, the Fund was financed mainly with a share of
proceeds from CDM project activities. In Doha, in 2012, it was decided that for the second commitment
period, international emissions trading and joint implementation would also provide the Adaptation
Fund with a 2 percent share of proceeds.
The road ahead
The Kyoto Protocol is seen as an important first step towards a truly global emission reduction
regime that will stabilize GHG emissions, and can provide the architecture for the future
international agreement on climate change.
In Durban, the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) was established
to develop a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the
Convention, applicable to all Parties. The ADP is to complete its work as early as possible, but no
later than 2015, in order to adopt this protocol, legal instrument or agreed outcome with legal force
at the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties and for it to come into effect and be
implemented from 2020.
More information on targets
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