The Kyoto Protocol
The first binding emission cuts — and the biggest emitters escaped them
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Kyoto introduced emissions trading as an instrument, since become the main model in the EU and elsewhere. Its weakness — that only some countries took on obligations — is exactly why the Paris agreement twenty years later was built quite differently, with voluntary national targets from every country instead of binding requirements on a few.
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The Kyoto Protocol obliged wealthy countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by set amounts. The United States never joined, and China and India had no obligations. That made its effect smaller than it might have been.
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