When the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the Earth Summit, was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the result was the international treaty known as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The purpose of this treaty, which went into effect in 1994, was to prevent "dangerous anthropogenic interference with Earth's climate system." Instead of specific limits on emissions for individual nations, the treaty simply called for future protocols that would set these limits, but the intention was that industrialized nations, known as Annex I countries, would reduce their emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000. In 1995, the first annual Conference of the Parties (COP-1) was held in Berlin, Germany, to analyze progress and make plans for the future. It was generally agreed that industrialized nations would not be able to honor their emission reduction commitments by 2000. The Berlin Mandate, an agreement reached at that meeting, was an attempt to establish goals that could reasonably be met.

Realizing that the 2000 targets would not be met, the framers of the Berlin Mandate gave the parties the ability to begin making plans and commitments "for the period beyond 2000." Following the understanding reached in the UNFCCC, industrialized nations would continue to bear most of the responsibility for emissions reductions, because they generated most of the emitted greenhouse gases (GHGs) and because they were most able to make reductions. However, it was agreed that

the global nature of climate change calls for the widest possible cooperation by all countries and their participation in an effective and appropriate international response, in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and their social and economic conditions.

The Berlin Mandate called for a two-year analytical and assessment phase to be conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and suggested that this research phase might lead to new targets for the years 2005, 2010, and 2020. The second Conference of the Parties (COP-2) was to present a progress report including "an analysis and assessment, to identify possible policies and measures for Annex I Parties which could contribute to limiting and reducing emissions by sources and protecting and enhancing sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases." The study, with recommendations for further binding agreements, would be completed in time to be presented by the Ad Hoc Group on the Berlin Mandate (AGBM) at COP-3.

The AGBM met eight times between COP-1 and COP-3. At Kyoto, Japan, where COP-3 was held, it proposed what became known as the Kyoto Protocol. Based on the findings of the IPCC, the protocol created binding targets for Annex I countries. The United States, the largest emitter at the time, was to reduce its GHG emissions to about 7 percent below 1990 levels; European Union nations would reduce by 8 percent, and Japan by 6 percent. Although they had agreed in theory to the provisions of the Berlin Mandate, many industrialized nations protested that refusing to hold developing nations, or non-Annex I nations, to binding reduction targets was both unfair and unwise. These developing nations were undergoing rapid population growth and industrial development, and it was recognized that by 2010 they would be the largest emitters of GHGs. Citing this disparity and its own need for continued economic growth, the United States did not ratify the treaty, although by 2008, 183 other countries had ratified it.

References:

1)         Chasek, Pamela S., David Leonard Downie, and Janet Welsh Brown. Global Environmental Politics. 4th ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 2006.

2)         Montgomery, W. David. Toward an Economically Rational Response to the Berlin Mandate. Boston: Charles River Associates, 1995.

3)         Niskanen, William L. Reflections of a Political Economist: Selected Articles on Government Policies and Political Processes. Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2008.

4)         Paterson, Matthew. Global Warming and Global Politics. New York: Routledge, 1996.

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