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

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

This cap-and-trade system operated successfully from 1990, becoming the model for a similar approach to greenhouse gases under the 1997 Kyoto protocol – though that attempt was less successful, because the US rejected it.

From The Guardian • Oct. 12, 2020

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

This “differentiation”, which distinguishes between rich countries and the rest, was a feature of the UNFCCC’s first offspring, the ill-fated Kyoto protocol.

From Economist • Dec. 16, 2015

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