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Both hydropower dams and global warming pose threats to freshwater fish diversity. While the extent of global warming may be reduced by a shift towards energy generation by large dams in order to reduce fossil-fuel use, such dams profoundly modify riverine habitats. Furthermore, the threats posed by dams and global warming will interact: for...

This article gives a brief overview of the Kyoto Protocol, its core features of long-term relevance, the outlook to 2012, and the options for moving forward with a new round of negotiations on international climate change responses. It is concluded that major elements of the Kyoto system are now irreversible. This is not only because of ongoing...

This paper aims to present, from the perspectives of Germany and Japan, some of the major issues facing the international community in reaching agreement on the Kyoto Protocol and its implementation. It also provides the background leading up to the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Berlin Mandate, and the Kyoto...

Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the international community has sought to find a policy framework to address the threat of human-induced climate change. The most significant action to date has been the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in December 1997. Given Russia’s recent decision to ratify the protocol it is now...

This paper provides an overview of the three Kyoto mechanisms?joint implementation, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), and international emissions trading. These mechanisms enable parties to the Kyoto Protocol with emissions limitation commitments for 2008 to 2012 (Annex B parties) to meet those commitments at lower cost. Projects under the CDM...

The Kyoto Protocol can best be understood as being an economic instrument that uses flexible targets and market mechanisms to limit greenhouse gas emissions at the least cost. Its market orientation was largely inspired by the United States, which nevertheless opposes it on economic grounds. Yet a meaningful global regime requires the participation...

Germany is the leader among countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in reducing its emissions of the Kyoto basket of greenhouse gases (GHGs), having accomplished an emissions reduction of 18.9 percent from 1990 to 2000. This paper aims to explain the reasons for this success and to examine the...

The aim of this paper is to examine the repercussions in Japan wrought by the Kyoto Protocol, which it signed in 1997, and to point the way for the country’s response in the next and future rounds of protocol-related negotiations. This challenge is met by first reviewing Japan’s past negotiating positions at the international level and relevant...

This article describes the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) policy of India, provides estimates of potential for a few sectors, and voices India’s concern about the CDM. In particular it covers the problems of determining CDM baseline, transaction costs, and risks that have to be borne by the developing countries and determining a fair price for...

Despite good intentions to get a solid grasp of various technical issues and put in place policy instruments related to the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, Indonesia’s government still faces tremendous challenges in terms of disseminating information on the progress of climate treaty negotiations and gaining as wide public support as possible...