Jump To:

• Kyoto protocol
  Kyoto protocol

  noun

  an amendment to the United Nations international treaty on global warming in which participating nations commit to reducing their emissions of carbon dioxide, negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997
• Kyoto Protocol
  Kyoto Protocol

  An agreement on global warming reached by the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. The major industrial nations pledged to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases between 2008 and 2012. (See greenhouse effect.) Although the American delegation signed the protocol, the United States Senate has refused to ratify the treaty, mainly because it believes that the targeted reductions are so steep that they will produce a severe economic slump.

Kyoto protocol

British  

noun

1. an amendment to the United Nations international treaty on global warming in which participating nations commit to reducing their emissions of carbon dioxide, negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997

---

Kyoto Protocol Cultural  

1. An agreement on global warming reached by the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. The major industrial nations pledged to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases between 2008 and 2012. (See greenhouse effect.) Although the American delegation signed the protocol, the United States Senate has refused to ratify the treaty, mainly because it believes that the targeted reductions are so steep that they will produce a severe economic slump.

---

Discover More

Attacking the U.S. position as selfish, European governments have been extremely critical of the U.S. refusal to ratify the protocol.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Kyoto protocol Kyoto Protocol

Many African countries argued for a legally binding global agreement to tackle droughts - something like the Kyoto protocol launched in 1997 to cut down carbon emissions, sources told the BBC.

From BBC ● May 23, 2022

Two countries that were especially important in terms of their potential impact that did not ratify the Kyoto protocol were the United States and China.

From Textbooks ● Sep. 6, 2018

Meanwhile, the Conference of Parties had formulated a market-based approach to climate change as the basis for the Kyoto protocol to the UNFCCC.

From The Guardian ● Jun. 5, 2017

The Kyoto protocol, signed in 1997, imposed on all the industrialized countries that signed it an obligation to cut carbon dioxide emissions by at least 5 percent in the period 2008-2012 versus 1990.

From Reuters ● Nov. 12, 2015

The Kyoto protocol actually is legally binding, but it contains no provisions to enforce penalties against those who fail to do what they agreed to.

From Economist ● Dec. 15, 2011

In a 1997 speech in China, he spoke out against the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to set global emission-reduction targets that the U.S. eventually rejected.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026

However he has had rows with the US in the past, criticising their decision to leave an earlier climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, when he was head of the IPCC.

From BBC ● Dec. 9, 2025

Known as the Kyoto Protocol, the agreement asked 41 high-emitting countries across the world and the European Union to cut their emissions by a little more than 5% compared to 1990 levels.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 12, 2023

In the late 1990s she led the first U.N. climate conferences and the Kyoto Protocol.

From Scientific American ● Oct. 25, 2023

Under President Bill Clinton, the United States helped design the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, where dozens of countries agreed to reduce the levels of seven greenhouse gases.

From New York Times ● Jul. 1, 2022