Although the heightened importance of energy policy in the struggle between rising global energy demand and its con-sequences for our climate is today recognized around the world, there are still no more than a handful of internationally binding, multilateral agreements.
While the need for a policy designed to conserve climate and resources is acknowledged by the majority of countries, it is not always reflected accordingly in political initiatives.

Climate convention and Kyoto Protocol

The Framework Convention on Climate Change and the resul-tant Kyoto Protocol are of paramount importance for global climate protection and consequently also for further measures to conserve energy on a national level. The United Nations Frame-work Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) of 1992 was the first international treaty to consider climate change as a serious problem and obligated the community of nations to take corresponding action.
At the time, more than 150 nations signed the international Framework Convention on Climate Change at the UN Con-ference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. The first quantitative targets for reducing emissions of key green-house gases were developed on its basis up to 1997 and adopted in what is known as the Kyoto Protocol.
With this Protocol, numerous industrial and emerging countries committed themselves to reducing their collective emissions of the six key greenhouse gases by at least 5 % below the level of 1990 in the period from 2008 to 2012.
The individual signatory states were granted different targets, depending above all on their respective economic development.
By December 2006, 169 countries and confederations had ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Australia and the USA are exceptions, as they have to date not made any commitment to reduce their emissions.
The countries of the EU agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by a total of 8 %, with reductions being apportioned among the then 15 member states under the so-called Burden Sharing Agreement.

Kyoto target in danger

Recent studies on the development of greenhouse gas emis-sions worldwide illustrate the practical difficulties involved in im-plementing a global climate policy. According to the UNFCCC study of October 2006, emissions of the Kyoto greenhouse gases have declined by 3.3 % overall between 1990 and 2004 in Annex I countries1, but this positive trend is due almost exclusi-vely to the drastic decline in industrial emissions by the countries of central and eastern Europe during their economic transforma-tion. Emissions by these countries as a group, however, increased again by 4.1 % between 2000 and 2004.
Greenhouse gas emissions by the remaining member states of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change rose by 11.0 % in the period from 1990 to 2004. These developments are also confirmed by a study published by the German Institute for Economic Research (Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaft – DIW) in mid-2006. According to the report, total greenhouse gas emissions by Annex B countries2 were almost 3 % below the level of the base year 1990 in 2005, but emissions of these gases have continued to rise in the majority of industrialized and transition countries in recent years. In the countries of central and eastern Europe, emissions have risen by roughly 10 % in the period from 1998 to 2005 alone.

1 All so-called industrialized countries, i.e. all OECD countries with the exception of South Korea and Mexico, as well as the transition countries of eastern Europe
2 All OECD countries – excepting Turkey, South Korea and Mexico – as well as the transition countries (excluding Belarus)