Kyoto under the microscope in quest for new deal

As the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol draws to a close, the world will dissect its record for successes to emulate in the fight against global warming - and pitfalls to avoid.

If all goes well, Kyoto will eventually be superseded by a new worldwide treaty, whose design is being negotiated at UN talks in Doha.

Its job would be to limit global warming to a manageable 2C (3.6F) from pre-industrial levels.

But what should this much-trumpeted post-2020 pact look like?

Searching for an answer, many are scrutinising Kyoto, the most ambitious but also the most contested climate pact ever seen.

“The protocol was the best we could produce in 1997. Now things are different. The situation has changed radically,” Argentine diplomat Raul Estrada said.

Adopted in 1997 after 30 months of tough negotiations, the protocol was then held up by further wrangling over its rulebook before finally taking effect in 2005.

It bound 37 industrialised nations and the European Union (EU) to curbing Earth-warming greenhouse gas emissions by 5% on average in 2008-2012 from 1990 levels. In Doha, negotiators are wrangling over a second set of pledges that would run from 2013.

Kyoto has always excited passions.

Developing countries and greens like it because countries that historically are to blame for today’s warming have legally-binding commitments on their emissions.

Critics, though, say it is flawed.

Their sharpest barbs are reserved for a rich country/poor country divide that may have held true in 1997 but is badly out of date today.

Developing countries have no targeted commitments, the idea being that they should be able to use cheap fossil fuels to power their rise out of poverty.

This category includes bone-poor economies such as Niger and Burkina Faso - and newly-rich ones like South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Singapore and Malaysia.

As a result China, which has emerged since 1997 as the world’s No. 1 CO2 spewer, has no specified targets.

Nor does the US, the No. 2 emitter today, which signed Kyoto but refuses to ratify it citing unfairness.

According to the International Energy Agency, global energy-related CO2 emissions rose 3.2% in 2011 to reach a record high of 31.2 gigatonnes - pointing to potential warming of 3.6 C (6.5 F).

Even so, Kyoto spawned innovations that are likely to remain part of the climate landscape.

Kyoto is larded with compliance clauses. Countries who exceeded their targets by 2012 have to make good in the follow-up period, with a 30% penalty on top.

But nothing prevents them from simply walking away from Kyoto without facing the bill, as Canada did in 2011 after years of exceeding its carbon cap.

“The problem is the way that international law works,” lamented the Argentine diplomat. “You cannot go to the Security Council of the UN asking to make an expedition to a defaulting country.”

In this light, many observers contend that there are far simpler measures, such as taxes or industry-wide incentives, that set a price on carbon and get countries to pollute less.