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Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: Doha Amendment and joint fulfilment of commitments

2013/0376(NLE)

The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety adopted the report by Elisabetta GARDINI (EPP, IT) on the draft Council decision on the conclusion, on behalf of the European Union, of the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the joint fulfilment of commitments thereunder.

The committee recommended that the European Parliament give its consent to the conclusion of the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol.

The Doha amendment establishes a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol (KP CP2), starting on 1 January 2013 and ending on 31 December 2020, with legally binding emission reduction commitments according to which the European Union, its Member States and Iceland are committed to limit their average annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the years 2013 to 2020 to 80% of their base year emissions (mostly 1990). That commitment was determined on the basis of the total greenhouse gas emissions allowed during the period 2013-2020 under the EU Climate and Energy Package.

Alongside with it, the Doha Amendment makes three more changes to the text of the Kyoto Protocol to be implemented in this second commitment period which concern the following:

  • the inclusion of a new gas (nitrogen trifluoride);
  • an ambition mechanism providing for a simplified procedure to allow a Party to adjust its commitment by increasing its ambition during a commitment period;
  • a provision which automatically adjusts a Party's target to prevent an increase in its emissions for the period 2013 to 2020 beyond its average emissions for the years 2008 to 2010.

Although Iceland is not an EU Member State, it does participate in the EU ETS and it intends to fulfil its commitment in KP CP2 jointly with the EU and its Member States.

Members considered that the ratification decision on the conclusion of the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol and the joint fulfilment of the commitments by the European Union will send a strong signal about the efforts and the leadership of the EU and its Member States to address climate change at international level.

The Council should ensure that the domestic ratification processes in the Member States can take place no later than the third quarter of 2015 and together with the EU and that the Members States and the Union can deposit their instrument of acceptance well before the Paris Climate Change Conference in 2015.